The wandering birds of Mongolia
Nomad, an oriental cuckoo, is now at the centre of every bird specialist’s attention
Nomad has been wandering the Hubei province for a long time. Staying true to his name, he has been traveling around the world for the last few months. Last night he flew more than 430 kilometres to reach Hubei and the journey fatigued him.
He rested the night before he flew off to the South through the deserts of Henan.
Many miles away in Mongolia, unknown to Nomad, birdwatchers from "Birding Beijing" were watching him from the inside of a control room. They have been observing him ever since he started travelling from Ulaanbaatar to Siberia and finally to Russia.
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Nomad, an oriental cuckoo, is now at the centre of every bird specialist's attention.
The reason for heightened interest on this particular species of bird is owed to the fact that Nomad is a much newer species of birds in this region and there is still a lot to be learned about them.
As their eyes became fixated on the monitors, the Beijing-based birdwatchers' confusion about the bird's whereabouts began to grow.
They created a poll on the internet to discuss Nomad's possible destination.
Ornithologists and netizens were betting on his moves. Where was this oriental cuckoo flying? What is his ultimate destination? A guessing game about his possible winter destination kept the birdwatchers filled with anticipation.
Nomad, including four other common species of cuckoo of Mongolia have trackers lodged within their bodies - which is why the birdwatchers can followed their fleet.
After watching the birds some more, the birdwatchers decided to make the Mongolian cuckoos their next topic of research, with the project named "The Mongolian Cuckoo".
According to the birdwatchers, Mongolia seems to be the perfect geographical location for a research of this nature as the environment of this place is well suited for birds.
The study is aimed at learning about the cuckoos closely - starting from their migration route to their hibernation ground from summer through winter.
Since June of this year, Birding Beijing launched a dedicated webpage for keeping the netizens updated with the birds' latest geographical position.
Besides, Mongolia already has a bird-banding centre in Khurkh where such studies are appreciated, which led to the collaboration between Wildlife Science and Conservation Centre (WSCC) of Mongolia and The British Trust for Ornithology in association with Birding Beijing.
Sometime later, Birding Beijing found Mongolians to be very friendly and wanted to engage the local people with their research and so the birdwatchers went to local schools to educate the students about their project.
In addition, they requested the students to suggest names for the birds.
When the children came up with the names, the experts chose a few and now some of the birds are identified as Captain Khurkh, Namjaa, Prosper and Onon.
