our member Mr.
Tomáš Macek very nicely wrote the story of Kalvi's migration so far (this gentleman is an award-winning journalist, author of books and a lover of history) - thank you
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(GT - already with first little corrections yet)
Kalvi flew over Israel, he is on his way to Africa
The migration of the Estonian family of black storks from Karula National Park
The only Kalvi, this year's descendant of Karl II and Kaia, sent data from his stork migration in the November days. And he was doing great, in these moments he should also have completed a dangerous flight over Israel.
Mama Kaia has been in Africa for more than a month, and Kalvi's one-year-older sibling Waba should also be there, but they are not on the signal at the moment. Unfortunately, Waba's adoptive brother Bonus ran out of power in his transmitter battery in the summer. Other siblings were not equipped with them. And their very caring dad Karl II to everyone's regret, unfortunately died while flying over Turkey, according to the available indications, most likely due to the power line mast.
On his journey from Estonia, Kalvi spent eight long weeks in Bulgaria on the border of the Pazardžik and Plovdiv regions before deciding on October 31 that it was time to move on. He therefore left Plovdiv under his right wing and continued to follow the flow of the nice Marica River, where he had already fished before.
He found himself in the places where his older brother Waba also stayed for a week at the local rice fields last October.
It's a pity that Kalvi didn't add Toníček from Makov to his party on the way, who still stays not far from Stará Zagora and the town of Radnevo, even though the ambient temperature drops to 3 degrees Celsius at night (and hovers around 15 during the day). However, according to the latest information from Hana Kučerová, there is a large group of other black storks here with him.
Kalvi, on the other hand, left Bulgaria on the first day of November. Through the northern tip of Greece, he headed to the European part of Turkey, after which he spent the night in eastern Thrace near the meanders of the Ergene River, a tributary of the Marica.
On November 2nd, he may have wondered for a moment whether he had gone too far with the pace of migration, so he explored the region in the Turkish province of Edirne, flying only 19 km in a day.
Then the instinct he inherited from his parents told him: up to Asia, skápík. In the following week, he did not take a single day off.
On the third of November, for the first time in his stork's life ... the sea appeared in front of Kalvi. So far only smaller, the Marmara, but still: so much water!
The main highway here goes through the Bosphorus, the minor one through the Dardanelles. The rest of the Kalvi family equipped with working transmitters (Karl II, Kalvi, Waba) traveled to Asia over Istanbul and the Bosphorus this year, but our dear Kalvi took it almost in the middle of the Sea of Marmara.
He chose a route where there is relatively enough land below him. After 25 kilometres above the sea, he travelled over Marmara Island (the 2nd largest Turkish island) and soon over the Kapidag Peninsula. It was also an island in ancient times, but later joined the Turkish mainland. An earthquake was probably to blame, although legend has it that Alexander the Great's workers helped make the connection.
Anyway, in the ancient city of Kizikos on the Kapirdag peninsula, you can literally touch the stunning remains of ancient monuments and experience what it's like to be just you and a hunter (and sometimes not even a hunter) in the excavation site.
Kalvi, of course, had completely different concerns. He found himself on another continent. He began his acquaintance with Asia after a 175-kilometer day trip by looking for dinner by a small stream near Lake Kus, where ornithologists had already recorded 2,670 bird species, including flamingos and pelicans.
On the fourth of November, it continued east and passed north of Bursa, with 1.4 million inhabitants, the fourth largest city in Turkey, which was also the capital of the Ottoman Empire in the days before the conquest of Constantinople.
The next day (228 km on the speedometer), Kalvi turned slightly south, swept north of Eskisehir and dined at the Göynüközü Stream in Ankara Province.
But tomorrow! Oh man, it was a flight.
Even with the help of friendly air currents, he went across the entire country to the south of Turkey, past dervish Konya to ancient Cilicia, to the great city of Mersin and almost to the Mediterranean Sea. He spent the night not far from the Aksifat canyon, on a tree in the mountains, at an altitude of 1600 meters.
He had a respectable 337 kilometers on his account in 24 hours!
He flew north of Konya that day about 10 kilometers west of where his father, Karl II, went over the rainbow bridge.
But Karls II is certainly proud of his persistent offspring from somewhere in the stork sky.
Would Kalvi treat himself to a break after a long flight?
No idea.
On the seventh of November he arrived at the Mediterranean Sea (sir, it is much bigger than the Sea of Marmara...), he continued along it, past Mersin and Tarsus, from where the apostle Paul of Tarsus, one of the most important characters of the New Testament, came.
If Kalvi had turned north towards the mountains near the big city of Adana, he could have encountered Tonička alias Isik from Makov (she got her name from the Turkish ornithologists who photographed and filmed her). She settled in the local mountains for a longer nursing stay.
But Kalvi wasn't exactly in the right mood for visits, the stork's sixth sense told him: You have to keep going, keep going.
Over the Iskenderun Gulf of the Mediterranean Sea, he put it nicely across, in the same places as before in October, brother Waba (with mom Kaia flying an even more direct line). He managed forty-six kilometers above sea level in 40 minutes in the early afternoon. He spent the night near the Yarseli dam in the Hatay province at the very end of Turkey.
Now came the more dangerous part of the journey.
And also signal problem.
Kalvi's transmitter went silent for two days and did not pick up again until the evening of November 9, when he had covered another 347 kilometres, fortunately avoiding Lebanon and passing Damascus while flying over Syria.
The capital of Syria is considered the oldest still existing capital in the world, its existence is documented as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. The famous Ummayids ruled their empire from here in the 7th century, but the present is much darker, mainly due to the protracted Syrian civil war. In the ranking of the organization Global Liveability Ranking, this year Damascus was placed in the last 173rd place as the worst liveable of all the major cities evaluated.
Kalvi didn't want to do any sightseeing here either, preferring to head to the city of Ras Al-Ain near the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
On the morning of November 10, he successfully crossed the very dangerous region of the Golan Heights on the border between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, where the military force of the Hezbollah movement operates from the Lebanese side.
We don't know exactly where he continued over Israel after that, for understandable reasons the signal was significantly limited during the war.
But Kalvi seemed to sense that it was not advisable to linger, after a daily pilgrimage of more than 300 kilometres leading near the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, he arrived in southern Israel and from there he finally called - about 100 kilometres east of the Gaza Strip from the mountains of the Negev desert, where he was searching for water at Wadi Nahal Saraf.
The temperature here was quite acceptable: 23 degrees.
He had the last piece of Israel left, to the city of Eilat (on which, for a change, the Yemeni allies of Hamas sent a rocket in recent days) and then to Egypt, away from the war zone.
It is likely that Kalvi was already over Sinai on Saturday, but in the evening this time the data did not come, in this part of Egypt the storks' transmitters often go temporarily silent.
So keep up the good work, Kalvi. Africa is calling.
