Speciality of a national hunting (Kluchiki, Tuesday June 29, 2004)
The Jeep is dragging through the mud route, Nikolai, however, holds the wheel in one hand only and the other uses for gesturing: "A brigade ran in the boat in Ob, 14 guys. Suddenly, the saw an elk. They would benefit from his meat, and so they approach him and discuss whether to cut him in the middle of the river or catch him to the snare and kill him later near the bank. They decided to throw a snare over his neck. They succeeded and one man with a knife got ready at the stem. But after they got to the shallow water and the elk recognized steady ground under his legs, it rushed. It ran out to the bank and dragged the boat behind him; one man after the other fell out of the boat. The snare broke finally and the elk ran away. They had to repair the boat and it took half a day to put it back on the water." Not only Nikolai is in good mood tonight. We are just returning from Iristu's nest.
Last night, I did not believe that we would find Iristu's nest at all. I did not even believe that the nest would exist. This morning - after five unsuccessful days - we started to await Iristu's signal on different places in the forest just to make sure we did not neglect anything...
Iristu appeared before 11am and we were receiving the signal almost for an hour. His transmitter could be heard from all possible directions but northern one. We knew that there is one occupied nest there. I drew all the most hopeful directions and waited for Franta and Nikolai to appear. They did not for quite a long time. I was already about to set out after them when I heard motor of the Jeep.
Nikolai looked quite self-sure. He saw Iristu fly over not too distant swamps and he was sure that the nest is northward from them. Frant felt more sceptic. We started to draw plans in the sand on the road. Finally we agreed that most probable are two places. On northward and the other eastward from the swamps. I calculated the most probable position of the nest based on all the possible GPS coordinates, anyway, I said to Nikolai to drive his own way. When he stopped, I looked at GPS. We were 50 meters from the point that I have calculated.
"Where would you like to search?" I asked him.
Nikolai pointed at the forest in front of us.
"I think more rightish, let's start there," I decided.
Three minutes later, Nikolai's cry was heard.
He found Iristu's nest!
By the way, it's where we went by three times earlier not farer than a hundred meters...