Ordering a female (Saturday 19th July 2003)
I wouldn't have believed it on Monday nor Tuesday. It's early morning and Lubos Peske is saying: "In case of a male, shall I let him fly away?" I agree. We would like to have one female besides the two male. Even if it's very complicated. Real decision about stork's sex must be based on DNA analysis. To find out whether it's a male or female stork, which just arrived at the nest to feed, from a shelter - it's impossible. It would be a great luck. The male would have to be a real giant - similar to the one we marked on Thursday. All in all, we have high level of self-confidence.
Lubos got hidden in the shelter. We moved off a little bit and prepared to have a rest for one or two hours. But the transmitter clashed in a while.
"Lubos is in a good shape. He trapped a stork in a half an hour! I said to Nikolai, Jarda and Khalil.
!["I've got it," hears from the transmitter. A stork at the nest - or a trapped one?](https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/sites/default/files/styles/lightbox/public/images/00145151.jpeg?itok=VfRetTj- ""I've got it, " hears from the transmitter. A stork at the nest - or a trapped one? | foto: Khalil Baalbaki")
"After some time, he will be able to trap them in the air," Nikolai smiled.
The stork trapped at the third nest, which Taradonov boys showed us a little bit beyond the village, weighs 3.1 kilograms.
"It's properly big and according to the size of its pecker, it might be a female," Lubos said after he applied a "backpack."
We have achieved what we had planned. After one week stay in Siberia, all three storks are marked with transmitters. In next few days, we are going to monitor them. We will also make some negotiation with Suzun authorities - about the protection of storks' nests. We are going to move to Novosibirsk in the end of this week and to Prague on Monday 28th July from there.
!["We have to make a photo altogether with the third stork." And so it was.](https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/sites/default/files/styles/lightbox/public/images/00145148.jpeg?itok=c1CzoBAz ""We have to make a photo altogether with the third stork." And so it was. | foto: Khalil Baalbaki")
"I wish it was September already and the storks started to fly south," Lubos had it.
By the way, besides Khalil's suggestion 'Suzun' we don't have names for our storks. Any suggestion from you?
(REM.: In the last article I mentioned that the villagers told about a nest on the ground beyond the river Ob. Oleg Zakourcev found that it was a egrets' nest.)