September
  • September 1       Zuzana was satellite-located in western Hungary while Viktor resided in northern Austria near Hollabrunn. It seemed that the first two storks had chosen south-eastern path to reach the African continent. September 6 The African Odyssey '95 expedition first unit moved to Rába (Hungary) to follow Viktor (they were Miroslav Bobek, Frantisek Pojer and Ervín Dittel).

  • September 14       The expedition crew have been observing Viktor for eight days in the Little Plain territory (Hungary). Most of the time, he rested or cleaned his feather. Together with Viktor, another black stork was encountered in this area.
          After taking a break at hungarian-slovakian borderline, Zuzana slowly overflew Hungary and reached western Romania.
          Kristyna was still rambling in Brdy hills area. The expedition crew hoped she would save the whole mission - they needed a stork that would fly to Afrika via south-western path across Strait of Gibraltar.

  • September 15       The crew went to Orlicke hory mountains area, where Kristyna was located by the Argos system. (Much later, they found that this data had been false.)

  • September 17       In the evening, Kristyna was located near Tuttlingen in southern Germany. The African Odyssey '95 expedition crew followed her to this destination right away. Without any doubt, Kristyna left the Brdy hills area on the 16th of September.

  • September 18 At eleven o'clock, Kristyna's ground transmitter signal was located near Tuttlingen. The "step by step" tracking phase has begun.

  • September 26      Kristyna was observed in a dry Sierra Nevada promontory in Spain. She titivated her feather for a rather long time. At 10 o'clock, she took off, flew up high and then glided towards Strait of Gibraltar. Thus, the first phase of tracking Kristyna was finished. The expedition crew was already complete (they were Miroslav Bobek, Frantisek Pojer, Lubomir Peske, Khalil Baalbaki, Jaroslav Simek, Vojtech Mrlik, Ervin Dittel and Milos Ptacek), and ready to continue. Kristyna flew across Europe all alone. She followed neither rivers nor landscape morphology. Instead of stopping by lakes and wet grounds, she explored small creeks near mountain areas. There, she usually fed herself in the morning and in she continued her pilgrimage in the afternoon. She travelled 200 to 250 km a day. Her longest stop in Europe lasted for 2 days.
          The expedition crew got aboard ship and travelled from Algacíras to Ceuta.
          Viktor left Hungary (he had stayed there in Little Plain territory near Rába for western Romania. That's where Zuzana had been rambling for two weeks as well.

  • September 27      Kristyna said good bye to Europe. While she was flying over the Strait of Gibraltar (between Tarifa and Morocco), she was seen by Spanish ornithologists at Cazalla station at 11 A. M.

  • September 29      The expedition crew followed Kristyna in High Atlas (Morocco).

  • September 30      The team went into desert to follow Kristyna in southern Morocco. The direction was due Oued Drâa river-bed close to Algerian border. The crew successfully received her signal in the area. However, presence of local army units made it impossible to locate her proper position.

Miroslav Bobek      


Texts by Miroslav Bobek and František Pojer
Photo by Khalil Baalbaki, Gérard Jadoul and archive of Africka odysea
Design by Tom Vild
Page by Lenka Hampapová
Supported by the company Internet servis, a.s.

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