Thirty-one juvenile Northern Bald Ibises were hand-raised by two human foster parents. It is an extraordinary group, perfectly imprinted on the two foster parents, reliable and homogeneous. Since June, the birds were trained in Überlingen/Hödingen.
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.
21/08/2017
Today's attempt to cross the Reschenpass had to be cancelled because of the lack of thermal. Tomorrow we will try again, hoping that the weather will be better.
As always, you can find the latest migration information on our Facebook page. All previous flight tracks are available via this link.
We´re starting with the preparations for the human-led migration! The expected start date - depending on the weather - is August 14th. Due to the work we have to do, the training camp in Hödingen will be closed for visitors from Wednesday, August 9th. However, there are still two more training flights planned, one of them on the upcomping Wednesday. Those who are interested in the flight training can watch from the sports field or from the street!
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.
Spring 2017 has arrived, so it´s time to re-start the Newsletters. And there´s quite a good reason to do so. The day before yesterday, on March 22, the first wild bird within this season arrived at the breeding site Burghausen in Bavaria.
