Still quiet (Thursday September 9, 2004)
Nothing happens in fact. Altynai, who flew to the south of Kazakhstan by the end of August, is still staying at the same places - exactly as last year. On the other hand, the Mongolian storks (Chingiz and Tuya) are at their nests.
Altynai is staying at the south of Kazakhstan in the basin of Syrdaria river and we are intensively in touch with prof. Kovshar from Almata. Tracking Altynai and our other storks shows that there is very important migration stop for water birds near Syrdaria. It's also a key area for their protection as well, still nobody did any research in this area so far...
As far as Mongolian storks are concerned, they probably use slightly different strategy for migration than Siberian storks, who fly over 1500 kilometres south westward and stop for several weeks. In that case it is possible that Chingiz and Tuya will stay at their nesting places for quite a long time and then fly to the wintering grounds straight without any stops...