A stork forest and a stork swamp (Thursday 24th July 2003)
It's raining is an insufficient phrase. It's showering. But we don't mind now anyway. We are packing our baggage so that we could leave Klyuchiks for Novosibirsk tomorrow and from there home. We have succeeded to mark three black storks with transmitters and monitored them shortly. And we can't wait for the time they fly out to their winter grounds...
We know about three occupied nests with chicks in Suzun district. As a whole, we marked 21 spots for nests on our map:
Nests with nestling...3
Nests where this year's nesting wasn't successful...3
Nests whose existence is only assumed...4
Nests occupied last year but NOT this year...4
Nests occupied neither last year nor this year...7
Remarkable is the high number of nests where nesting was not successful and also number of nests occupied last year but not this year (even if it's fewer than estimated). There's no doubt we did not find all the nests; frequent storks' flights over the Ob river suggest higher number in "assumed" column.
Most of the storks are in forests near Taradanov; even occupied nests are distant one from each other no more than 2.5 kilometers. At least this area calls for better protection.
But the storks do not usually stay on the right bank where they have their nests. Both last year's satellite tracking and this year's monitorings showed the storks spend most time on the left bank by the Zaobi swamps. For instance the third stork we watched on Tuesday stayed near the left bank for a long time in the zone of trees with pools where it could find food enough.
A strange landscape starts beyond Ob. The trees ends a few tens of kilometers off the river and huge flats of reed-mace, bent-grass and horsetail extend further on and on... It's an ideal hunting-ground for the storks.
Soon after our arrival home we'll find out what sexes are the storks we "backpacked", and then we'll baptize them. Still we are looking for names. If you've got any idea, let us know.