Gombo delivers results - we got the first stork (Western Mongolia, Nariian Teel, Thursday, July 7, 2005)
On Thursday morning, we wake up in a little picturesque valley surrounded by rocks that serve as a playground for pikas since the early morning. After a while, a saken falcon flies over our heads and before we leave we discover two nests of cinereous vultures on more distant rocky slopes. Inhospitable rocky landscape accompanies us all morning; gigantic cliffs have a special charm, though, and are very photogenic. We keep watching ledges and niches on the cliffs with nests of vultures, eagles and sakens. "There must be black storks somewhere," I tell Gombo. He nods by seem a little impatient, watching his GPS. Suddenly he says it is just six kilometres to a stork nest he knows from previous years.
We drive down narrow tracks and ravines to a conspicuously new and wide dirt road. It takes us to a camp of road workers, consisting of several iurtas and many large construction vehicles and machines. High in the cliff above us is an empty stork nest. Our disappointment fades away when we imagine ourselves trying to capture a stork in the inaccessible rock face. "There is a nest with three youngs 300 metres up the road!" shouts Honza after he and Gombo talked to the workers.
![We were assisted by a large group of road workers and their family members when attaching the "backpack"](https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/sites/default/files/styles/lightbox/public/images/00297451.jpeg?itok=-oQkn4lJ "We were assisted by a large group of road workers and their family members when attaching the "backpack" | foto: Jan Schlindenbuch")
Really, three young storks sit in a nest on a cliff around 20 metres above a turn of a relatively busy road. They breathe quickly with beaks open to cool themselves down in the extremely hot weather. We examine the situation, install a trap early in the evening and build a shelter in the slope on the opposite side of the road.
We cannot wait Friday morning and sit in the shelter with Lubos as early as at half past six. The youngs do exercises with their wings, wander around the nest and then sit still. An adult stork appears suddenly like a ghost, the young start demanding food and the parent disgorges first fish. At that moment, the trap closes and we capture our first stork in western Mongolia this year. We equip the animal with a transmitter, weigh it, measure and take photos, with an eager assistance of the road workers and their family members. Within less than two hours after the capture, the male stork with a backpack on his back flies off to a side valley.
