Iristu at home as well! (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)
Iristu last stopped approximately 400 km southward from his nest on Irtysh River. It seems that after a tiresome flight-over, he recovered energy for the rest of his journey here during April 15.-18. We obtain news from him only every third day as his transmitting cycle transferred to the sparsest variant. He was at last localized near his nest at the south of Novosibirsk area! He finished his return from the wintering place either 19th or 20th April, approximately 5 days later than Altynai did.
At first sight, it's interesting that the return paths of both storks were not identical but parallel to their traces to south. While Altynai flew all the way as if in line with azimuth of 60 km southeastward, Iristu was copying it shifted the whole 400 km. They both corrected their direction towards the nesting place on the last phase.