Iristu sprinting - but where? (Monday August 18, 2003)
In the morning on Sunday August 10, male black stork name Iristu was near his nest at river Ob in the South of the Novosibirsk region. 72 hours later, satellites localised him more than 600 kilometres further to the southwest, in the Kazakh Highlands. In the following three days, until Friday night, he crossed more than a thousand kilometres to the westsouthwest to stop near river Syrdarya in southern Kazakhstan.
Not only did Iristu set off for his journey to the wintering grounds quite early (which is quite inconvenient for us due to the activity/inactivity setting of the transmitter), but also proceeds very fast, probably even faster than Roman last year who broke all speed records. Iristu's destination remains unclear though. He will apparently not fly over the highest mountain ranges but that was not clear last Wednesday. There are three options now: 1. Iristu will steer to the east and spend the winter somewhere on the Indian sub-continent (as Petr tried last year but died in Afghanistan). 2. Iristu will stop soon to winter in middle Asia (like Roman last year). 3. Iristu will fly on in the set course and reach Africa - which is unlikely. Further data will arrive at night and could shed more light on Iristu's intentions.