Tuya's fork (Friday, April 29, 2005)
We are awaiting with suspension what data will arrive this evening. That is to say, Tuya was staying in the latitude of her nesting place three days ago - but approximately 300 kilometres eastward. Her traces now create a fork, whose one peak (the brighter colour in the map) is where she had nested last year and the second one where the satellites noted her the three mentioned days ago. It is the first time ever that a stork with transmitter did not return to the area where it had nested the year before... Does it mean that Tuya will nest elsewhere this year? We'll see but I'd say that probably no. Perhaps her turn-off relates to the weather which is adverse in central Mongolia these days.
As far as Chingiz is concerned, even he reached Mongolia. The last (and very bad) data we have are from Monday. During the previous days when he was still in China, the satellites localised him only with difficulties. His solar transmitter worked worse and worse till it became invisible for the satellites. The question is whether it is a steady state...
No good news from Pakistan as well. Ondra failed to find Altynai's transmitter. More on this next week...