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black stork tracking
Two juvenile black stork siblings have been equipped with a 50 g trackers.
Young storks spent very little time flying while around the native nest. And their first leg of autumn migration was short and lasted only 2-3 days. Then, these birds stopped in Belarus and Ukraine where they spent about a month exercising their flight and feeding (Fig. 1).
Later on and similar to other storks from the region, these juveniles circumnavigated the Mediterranean from the east. One bird entered Egypt after crossing the Gulf of Aqaba (Fig. 2) and the Gulf of Suez (Fig. 3). And the other one apparently got lost in the Sinai Peninsula, turned around, returned to Israel and unfortunately perished there.
Fig 1. Movements of young black stork while staging in Belarus during the autumn migration.
Fig 2. Black stork track over the Gulf of Aqaba shows the bird loosing flight altitude when flying over water in the absence of thermals providing a lift.
Fig 3. Juvenile black stork autumn migration from late August until mid-October 2015. The tracks have been simplified by merging the adjacent positions.
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