Handwork lessons Ulaan Baatar, Monday, July 19 2004)
I was walking quietly through a scorched steppe to the opposite hillside, where Odkhu and Usukhu waited by the transmitter. The sun was hot so much that even tarbagans were hiding in their earths, but the grasshoppers and crickets were in their element. If only I could browse through Czech grass field, was on my mind. It's easy to say steppe, but grass and herbs grow here only sparsely and so the sand and dry loam are scrunching under one's feet. And if only could that grass field be freshly drenched... "Anything new" I asked after I came to the Mongolians. Nothing. Franta was not heard from the nest shelter.
We trapped the first stork on the last but one week within a few hours. It was much harder with the second one. Gomboo though found two other nests in spring already - one at the Golden mountain in Khustai National Park, and the other in the Bird's gap beyond its boundary -, but at the former the storks have no chicks and the latter with one chick is placed in the cliff bay. In other words, neither of these nests was suitable for bird trapping.
We spent a lot of time under the Golden mountain. Franta right at the mountain in the shelter by the nest, the rest of us were in the camp. The storks indeed flew to the rock with the nest and spent hours there, but would not sit at the nest where we placed the trapping device.
We had the nest in the Bird's gap in reserve but we did not count on it anyway. Gomboo and Premek therefore went to the forests north of Ulanbatar; perhaps they would find a nest there where the chance to trap the second stork would be bigger...
"Why not make the dummy stork?" Lubos suggested on Friday evening. "But the problem will be the red colour..."
We had been discussing in the last few days the fact that the storks at the Golden mountains may - as they have no chicks - defend their territory all the time and that is why they could attack a stork intruder.
"And what about giving a poster of a stork on the nest?" suggested then Premek.
The dummies already showed useful twice in the past. We trapped the stork male Krystof in Rakovnicko by means of padded stork years ago and a polystyrene model did upset our crane male Arnost, that we placed into his territory. I worked on the polystyrene model for about three weeks and few times I had to go to supermarket to buy needed material. Now we were in a steppe, furthermore without a car where we could find something useful.
When Franta was returning from the nest after the sunset, we had the base of the dummy done. The throat and the legs were made from sticks that Odchu found, the body from plastic bottles, and all of this covered with loads of toilet paper and sealing tape.
"What a beauty," Franta said and Odchu shone.
There was no problem with the black colour as we used it to mask the cables leading to the nest, we got the red one as well finally. Khalil cut off a piece of reddish bag for potatoes to create legs. We made the pecker from a red Akbar tea box while the white writings covered by dribs of red paper that I found at the bottom of my rucksack.
After two hour lesson of hand works in steppe we were really satisfied with the outcome. "The hot subscribed to us notably," I restrained our passion.
Franta and Lubos gave the dummy at the nest on Saturday morning. The storks did not notice it all day long.
Fortunately, the car with new supplies from Ulaan Baatar was back and thus we moved to the Bird's gap. To the local nest in the cave, we attached modified trapping device and went to sleep with the last rests of hope.
A storm broke out at night. The morning was quiet, however, Franta found the shelter swept around. He quickly fixed it and hid himself. Hours went on. First, second, third. In the camp at 10 am, I came to a conclusion that more endeavour of ours here has no meaning. What are we going to do now? While Gombo and Premek will search in the north, we will go along Tuul and try to find other nest there... Just like a needle in a haystack.
"Franta cash stork!" Odchu in an anger mistook the words catch and cash. "Maybe."
In a while, Khalil started to wave from the transmitter like crazy. Now it was sure. Franta really did trap our second Mongolian stork!