by Todd Katzner
August 11, 2003
Page 12 : June 20 - Saker Nests
Spent the day trying to help Evgeny fix the Niva and did little else. A pretty boring day. At the end of the day Evgeny went back to Kostanay and Jamie and I stayed in Karamendy. We want to give Evgeny a chance to take care of his personal business and to get some time away from us.
21, 22 June 2003 (Saturday, Sunday)
Did no field work, spent the time in Karamendy, relaxing and passing time reading. Slow times like these are a part of field work. In my spare time I worked on a couple of papers that I needed to work on and Jamie and I prepared a pile of wing tags for eagles. 60 tags for 30 birds, in total.
23 June 2003 (Monday)
The morning and early afternoon were spent waiting for Evgeny to return from Kostanay. He is bringing a Spanish biologist and a Spanish film crew that is interested in doing natural history journalism. They report on both the interesting place, as well as the biology of the area, and finally on the research that we are doing in this place. This crew does not arrive until about 4PM. We immediately go and get some food and then take them to the small hotel where they are staying. Drop their bags and go to a nearby eagle nest to begin filming. This is a place where the bird tends to spend most of its time near the nest and often will stay close by when people disturb it. So this time we stop about 250 yards away from the bird and it sits on the nest. This film crew breaks out their awesome camera and films—it seems like we are right next to the bird (they have a small tv that you can watch the film on). Amazing. We keep creeping closer and closer and finally at about 70 yards the bird flies. The crew even gets great shots of the birds flying. Really amazing. This all takes a couple of hours and then we head home for a late dinner and immediately to bed.
24 June 2003 (Tuesday)
A long day in the field. We spend the whole day in Naurzum forest. Start by working on a Saker nest, processing those chicks. Then we head off to a couple different eagle nests. The film crew gets some good shots of an eagle nest and we also show them another site where we can see eagle foraging grounds, etc. Head back to town for lunch, then back to the field in the evening. Try to show the crew where to get video of ground squirrels and other mammals. Finally when heading back home, we find another eagle perching and get some more amazing photographs of the place. It is really remarkable how easy these folks are able to get photos.
One of the neatest things of the day was that early on at one of the first sites we had the occasion to see a juvenile eagle stray into a territory defended by two adults. Both adults flew up to meet this juvenile and both slowly pushed him out of their territory. It was very much an unhurried interaction and we all had the sense that these birds were just making a statement, rather than trying to really attack an intruder. But quite fun to watch and I really learned a great deal. Back home by 11 and to bed quickly.
25 June 2003 (Wednesday)
Another long day. Went to Tersec, visited multiple eagle nests of many types and I climbed one of them (found an infertile egg, collected it, hopefully for pesticide analysis). Good marmot shots on the way back. When we got back to town, the film crew wanted to go to the forest again to film some talking, so we went and did that as well. We were all a little frustrated by this and I went walking off alone with the video camera I use here. Within 50 yards of the vehicle I encountered a deer (they are much less common here than in North America and a different species as well) and was able to get some really great footage of it—that was the best video I’ve done yet. Home late again.
26 June 2003 (Thursday)
Woke a little later and went to the field to Sip-sin. Visited a few eagle and saker nests, then headed back to town and then to Naurzum forest. Finally got to put wing tags in eagle chicks—a sea eagle nest was the first set that were ready to be tagged. We tagged those birds and I was able to show Jamie how her samples were collected (those she uses for DNA analysis). After this we went back to town and I gave an interview with the film crew (which also involved me riding my motorcycle). Finally ate and washed in preparation for leaving town tomorrow. We will drive to Kostanay in the AM and then take the evening train to Almaty. I think that I will be glad to be out of this place. It has been a long and often frustrating month.
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