The Amazing Journey

After an absence of any firm location data since early October, Erzhan – our most experienced traveller – has just popped up on our radar again. For the fourth year running we can confirm he is now back in a wintering flock in Sudan.

After an absence of any firm location data for nearly one month, Erzhan announced his presence again this weekend when we received a new transmission confirming he has left Kazakhstan, passed through Russia and Georgia and has now arrived, right on cue, in Eastern Turkey.

Satellite coordinates from the 5th September show that Erzhan has moved about 500km west to a point above the Caspian Sea.

A series of three good transmissions on August 27th placed Erzhan further west and near the village of Mugyr about 260 Km west of Lake Tengiz.

Of the birds that we have been monitoring in central Kazakhstan, Erzhan, our most seasoned traveller is perhaps, unsurprisingly, the first to make his move. He is now underway on his Autumn migration and, as you can see from his location on the map above, by August 19th he had travelled about 400 km south west of where he had been summering to the east of Lake Tengiz.

Erzhan – our most seasoned traveller – has been summering in Central Kazakhstan again in 2010 but once again, in a different breeding location to the previous year. Data from Erzhan’s transmitter has led to the surprising discovery that Sociable Lapwings don’t necessarily return to the same breeding colony. Remarkably – the transmitter the study [...]

Maxim Koshkin – Conservation Project Leader for ACBK in Kazhakstan – kicks off the Amazing Journey with a report on the catching and satellite-tagging of eight Sociable Lapwings on their breeding grounds in late May, 2010.