Since April 23rd, 33 Norther Bald Ibis chicks are hand-raised at Zoo Vienna by their two human foster parents Corinna Esterer and Anne-Gabriela Schmalstieg. Visitors of Zoo Vienna are able to watch the foster mothers at work; additionally, project team members are providing information about the European LIFE+ reintroduction project.
Waldrappteam has been awarded a three-year research project by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). In this project we want to use the unique possibilities of human-led migrations with the NBI to explore in depth the fascinating phenomenon of the formation flight in migratory birds.
After a long winter break, it is high time to start the new season 2018 with a newsletter. The results of a recent modelling offer a good opportunity. Based on the data of our wild living NBI population, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin performed matrix models, which calculated the future population development of our NBIs over a period of 15 years.
Santora is a one year old male Northern Bald Ibis. In 2016, he was hand-raised and released in Tuscany. This year, Santora started to migrate between the wintering site in Tuscany and the breeding site in Salzburg. At the end of September, Santora was on his way back towards south. On September 27th at 09:00 am, he departed from his night roost near Prato, heading to a site 2 km away were he used to look for food since his arrival a few days ago.
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.
