The autumn migration of our wild Northern Bald Ibises has begun with a true highlight: This year, the female “Camillo” from the generation 2015 returned from the wintering area to her breeding area in Burghausen (Bavaria) for the first time. She hasn´t bred yet, as she´s still too young. But on September 22nd, she started to fly back towards south, and six (!) juvenile Northern Bald Ibises of the current breeding season followed her.
The autumn migration of the free flying Northern Bald Ibises has begun; 36 birds have already left their breeding areas. Illegal bird hunting in Italy during the autumn migration is a big threat for the Northern Bald Ibises and other endangered bird species. In 2016 alone, five of our birds were shot in Italy. Those offences caused a financial damage of 230.000 Euro.
Yesterday, on the 6th of September, we arrived in the wintering area and were able to successfully complete the 12th Human-led Migration.
The day before yesterday, on August 26th, we arrived at the airfield in Thiene. After passing the Alps we now aim to fly across the Po-Valley. While during the first stages the weather was quite cold, we are now facing temperatures up to 35°C.
According to our project´s motto, we´re regularly organizing so-called “Reason for Hope” festivals at important project locations. This year the festival took place in Überlingen at Lake Constance, where we started the foundation of a third breeding area this year.
The Northern Bald Ibis is becoming increasingly established as a model for the investigation of the formation flight. In a new study, published this week, Voelkl and Fritz present by far the most extensive dataset on the precise positioning of birds in formation flight, collected with Northern Bald Ibises during a human-guided migration journey from Salzburg to southern Tuscany.
Since the start of the breeding season, the birds in the breeding colony of Kuchl, country of Salzburg, had been unusually nervous. The non-breeding birds even stayed elsewhere overnight. On July 13 in the morning, the nervousness within the colony increased enormously, and a chick was missing. A feather found on the ground gave reason to assume that an eagle owl was the cause.
Until now, 17 birds was the largest number of Northern Bald Ibises that were raised by one foster parent team.
Almost five years ago, two critically endangered Northern Bald Ibises, GOJA and JEDI, were shot by an Italian bird hunter in the province of Livorno, just 80 km north of their wintering site.
On the 21st of May, three young birds arrived in their breeding colony in Kuchl near Salzburg, a highlight of the season 2017. Although the three young birds are not yet sexually mature, they made their way to the north in April.
On April 18, 11 additional chicks for hand-raising were taken from nests at Zoo Rosegg. Three further chicks came from the colony at the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Grünau, Upper Austria. Together with the earlier collected chicks, a total of 31 Northern Bald Ibises will be hand-raised this year.
Yesterday, 17 Northern Bald Ibis chicks aged 2 to 8 days were taken from the nests of the Northern Bald Ibis breeding colony of Tierpark Rosegg in Carinthia. After a thorough veterinary check, the chicks were given into the care of the two experienced foster mothers Corinna Esterer and Anne-Gabriela Schmalstieg.
