African Odyssey Project –Research of the Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) Migration and Ecology Presented on Internet

Miroslav Bobek

Czech Radio, Vinohradská 12, 120 99, Prague 2, Czech Republic
email: mbobek@cro.cz

Introduction

African Odyssey project bears the following motto since its start in 1995:

Millions of migratory birds annually leave their breeding sites and head towards the South.  Bird migration is one of the most fascinating natural phenomena. Despite of century-long history of scientific research, bird migration is still little understood. Not until very recently we were able to observe this phenomenon step by step as in a ”live” broadcasting.

African Odyssey project, utilizing satellite telemetry (Argos system) and other modern technologies, represents the conjunction of both scientific and popularisation - education goals. The main organizer in charge of this project and its financing through the possibilities of sponsorship is  public Czech Radio. In 1995, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic became the scientific guaranty. Scientists, nature-conservationists, technicians and Czech Radio's employees contribute to this project as well.

About the project

The project's main goal is to study the migration and ecology of the Black Stork (Ciconia nigra). As much as 18 Black Storks were equipped with satellite (PTT) and VHF transmitters in the Czech Republic from 1995 to 2000. Some of them were monitored during consecutive years (female called Kristyna for almost 4 years). Several expeditions took place to observe these equipped birds either at their wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Ethiopia) or during their migration stop-overs in Europe and northern Africa. In 1995, Kristyna was followed from the Czech Republic to the eastern part of Senegal literally "step by step". The storks were being observed not only during migration and wintering but also at their breeding sites (by means of camera-systems installed by their nests).

Year after year, a great deal of knowledge of the Black Stork migration, ecology and conservation problems has been gained. An enormous interest of the broad public in the project was also very important fact. Individual birds – or whole families – became main characters of "series" with many parts to be continued. This "series" also created wide space for various thought-connections: thanks to the storks was possible to demonstrate modern technologies, to popularize a basic research and to present geographically and culturally distant countries and their inhabitants. 

Four years on the Internet

The medium of the African Odyssey project was from its start almost exclusively radio transmission (the press and TV did not inform so systematically). The radio programs and stories were being prepared in a standard way. Daily live sessions were broadcasted by means of satellite phone from each expedition. Increasing use of the Internet gradually opened the door for many new possibilities.

From the beginning of 1997, first texts, maps and pictures of African Odyssey appeared on the server of Radio Prague (http://www.radio.cz). It became also possible to place sound files in RealAudio format on this web page. These files contained transcripts of live sessions from the expedition to Ethiopia (January and February 1997). Neither the structure of the page nor its organization backgrounds did not allow to update information. A graphical design was also inappropriate.

The above mentioned fact was the reason for preparing a new internet site "African Odyssey" (http://capi.internet.cz) in summer 1997. This site has been updated till now.  New texts and pictures are published on its front page almost daily. Any visitor can be sure to find a big archive of schedules, texts, photos, animations and sound files which can serve as an illustration of various aspects of the project. This site reaches top positions in internet top-lists (the biggest number of visits were achieved in October 1998, when one of the storks was shot down in France) as far as Czech web pages dedicated to nature and science are concerned. This web site is visited mostly by students, educators, scientists, nature-conservationists, journalists and technicians. Children and pensioners that learn to use the Internet in general are among the visitors of the site. Summaries in English, German, French, Spanish and Russian are part of the site. They are visited by ornithologists and lovers of nature from USA, Spain, Belgium, France and other countries as well.

 Web pages called "Kristyna Live" (http://kristyna.rozhlas.cz) were started in May 1998. Live video transmission (in WebVideo format) from the Black Storks nest was presented on these pages for 86 days. All of video material was archived both in analog on videotapes and digitally on CD-R media. These pages reached enormous number of visits not only from the Czech Republic, but also from foreign countries. During the live transmission, visitors from nearly 90 countries opened the pages through their browsers. New video and audio files (RealAudio/RealVideo and MPEG format) from the other nest were weekly put on "African Odyssey" site in 1999 (http://capi.internet.cz/video1999.htm, in English on http://capi.internet.cz/video1999_en.htm) . 

Interactive web pages "Storks Online" (http://capi.fido.cz) were created in September 1998. Updated coordinates of tracked Black Storks are being published there from the "Stork Laboratory" (see below) several times per day. During the migration period, any internet visitor is able to see current position of particular storks, to create simple maps (whole passage or selected part only), to enumerate distances the storks have flown, etc. Nevertheless according to experience, texts enhanced with static maps, pictures and other objects (such as "African Odyssey" site uses) are for broad public much more challenging than those interactive ones.

Finally, web pages called "Expedition to West Africa" (http://praha.rozhlas.cz/capi) were created on the occasion of an expedition to wintering grounds of radio-tracked Black Storks in December 1999 and January 2000. These pages daily brought online reports firstly from Senegal and subsequently from Mauritania and Mali. These reports were not only texts in Czech, English, French and German, but also visual and audio files (audio records also enhanced live sessions from the expedition in radio broadcasts, photos appeared in the press).

All pages dedicated to African Odyssey project are mutually connected with African Odyssey site (http://capi.internet.cz) being the homepage. Undesirable scatter to different servers is due to the development during past years and due to financial and organization reasons.

As far as African Odyssey project is concerned, using of Internet cannot be reduced to spreading the information to the public. Sharing the information within the research team and processing the data are of the same importance. Non-public system called "Stork Laboratory" started to be used in January 1999. The "Stork Laboratory" contains all satellite data (not only coordinates but also technical data). It uses different subsystems including map generator, which enables to project selected coordinates into simple maps. Each team member can also create various partial files where additional notes can be put in. These files and notes are online accessible to the other team members. Therefore, an evaluation of  a large number of data can be done simultaneously from different places. Moreover, the "Stork Laboratory" enables to download new satellite locations of tracked birds from the main office of Argos system in Toulouse by means of Internet. These downloads occur either automatically in a given time period (usually every hour during the migration) or manually by clicking the appropriate link. The data are put into the database and simultaneously sent to the team members' mobile phones. Not in the last resort, new coordinates from the "Stork Laboratory" are published by team members on the "Storks Online" web pages.

The future prospects

The Internet division of Czech Radio was established in 2000. Consequently, Datasec company started to develop an editorial system for managing Czech Radio internet sites utilizing the most advanced technologies. Therefore, setting of the organization and technical basement will soon enable conjunction of all of the African Odyssey internet pages together and their placement on the domain rozhlas.cz. This new management of African Odyssey pages should improve their quality and enable their future development. Members of the team started to analyze a new version of interactive pages, which should use map backgrounds of higher quality, offer additional information and become more user friendly. At the same time, they started to develop advanced version of the "Stork Laboratory".

After deep and thorough thinking over, the main proposition of  the African Odyssey project changed. Future attention should be focused not only on the Black Stork, but also on the other species of migratory birds (two White Storks were tracked already in 2000). Scientific popularization and education as well as improvement of current knowledge remain the main goals of the project. In contrary to previous years, main medium of this project will be not radio broadcasting but the Internet.

Acknowledgements

Internet pages mentioned above would not exist without help of programmers Ivo Hulinsky and Martin Straka, and webmaster Lenka Hampapova. African Odyssey project would never happen without endeavor of Frantisek Pojer, Magdalena Pilna, Lubomir Peske, Jaroslav Simek and Jan Petru. I would like to thank sincerely to all of these people.

Summary

The project is aimed to study the migration and ecology of the Black Stork (Ciconia nigra); apart from scientific goals, the project serves to popularize and educate as well. In total, 18 Black Storks were equipped with satellite (PTT) and VHF transmitters in the Czech Republic from 1995 to 2000. 
Several expeditions were taken to storks wintering grounds in Africa however the storks were observed at their breeding sites as well. The project was put on the Internet in 1997. African Odyssey Internet pages (http://capi.internet.cz) offer updated text information enhanced with visual and audio materials; they contain complete archive as well. Pages "Storks Online"(http://capi.fido.cz) contain the coordinates of tracked birds and online generated maps. Within this project, the life video transmission of breeding on the Internet was carried out. Non-public system called "Stork Laboratory" enables the team members to archive and process satellite locations. The development of new interactive pages in the domain rozhlas.cz is being prepared.