Water and a forest (Wednesday 16th July 2003)
After five a.m. ,when the midnight has just passed in Prague, we rushed in Nikolai's car from Klyuchiks. It was raining. The chances that we might catch the first stork were low. After an hour, we got to the "Roman's" nest and after another hour, we got it all prepared. Then, Lubos got hidden away in a shelter and we moved off a little bit. It was still raining, but not enough to stop clouds of mosquitoes from attacking us. Time was running and Lubos wouldn't call us. After two hours, the transmitter clashed. "Come here! I've got it."
This year's first stork - probably a male - got his "backpack" afterwards. In secrecy we hoped whether the stork we were going to catch on Roman's nest would be ringed - it is not probable but Roman could have lost his transmitter. The stork we just caught was not ringed, which means that we won't be able to tell Roman's story till the end.
"Have you chosen names?" Jarda asked while Lubos was putting a transmitter on our new stork. "Khalil asked if we wouldn't call him Suzun." (rem.: It's a name of near district town.)
"It's not bad," murmured Lubos.
"Is it he-Suzun or she-Suzun?" I turned to Nikolay. "And, what does it mean?"
"Suzun is a male gender. It's an old Tartar name. Su means water and zun is a forest."
"So it's water and a forest? Or A forest near water?" I asked, but at the moment the choice of the was already made. If it is a male.
We let the stork out festively at noon. He had no problems with flying. And now we are to catch other two storks. The nest near Malysev is not suitable for stork-trapping. We need two or at least one other nest.
"Let's get to where we marked Katerina last year," challenged Nikolai, who saw three eggs in that nest a month ago; the fourth one lied on the ground then. Nikolai did not find other occupied nest. It seems that many storks failed to return.
For an hour or so, we made our way through meadows, fields and forests to Katerina's nest. We found it abandoned. Was it some kind of rivalry of more storks that made the nesting impossible? Maybe. (Later on we heard that villagers found a dead stork nearby - did one of the pair died?)
So likewise last year, we have to start searching in forests with the help of Nikolai. Besides, we've already started.