Thrilling weekend (Monday 9th September 2002)
"Katerina in China and flying, Peter in Kazakhstan and flying, Roman in Russia and flying." These are the words I wrote to our stork mailing list.. After Peter, who set off on Wednesday, Roman started on Saturday and Katerina flew out again. A huge amount of data arrived on Saturday so we could watch the storks' trace almost online. Let's hope it will stay that way...
Petr and Roman are in the north Kazakhstan by the river Irtys and katerina is in Kyrgyzstan near the Issyk-Kul lake. It seems that all the storks will fly the "western" trace, i.e. they'll fly west round the Tan-San, Pamir and Hindukus. They can winterize in Pakistan or India, but who knows...
Which way and how quick the storks will fly:
Petr started on 4th September and during the first flight day reached 100 km. On 5th September he flew over 100 km over Russia and during 6th and 7th September reached together over 200 km. This day he got to the north Kazakhstan and the night of 8th September he spent by the Irtys river near Semipalatinsk. Yeastarday 8th September he advanced along the Irtys river 70 km west.
Roman reached 200 km on 7th September, on 8th September 200 km as well and aslo reached Irtys river in the north Kazakhstan, although quicker than Petr.
Watching Katerina is the most interesting one. For quite a long time she stayed in northwest China, east from the Ebinut lake; 1000 km south from the winterizing place. We asked ourselves the following question: where and which way is she going to fly? If we extended her recent trace, it would lead to the highest peaks of Himalai. On 7th September she rushed out west across the Borohoro-Shan hills. She reached 250 km and spent the night nearby the Kazach boundary. She carried on her way yeasterday and stopped after almost 300 km near Issyk-Kul lake in Kyrgyzstan in the northern part of Tan-San. Although this lake, also called "the pearl of Tan-San", lies about 1600 meters above sea level, it never gets frozen and, thus, became known winterizing place for the water birds...