Déplacements prémigratoire et itinéraire de migration d'une cigogne noire (Cicinia nigra) juvénile suivie par télémétrie satellitaire

On 19th of July 1995, a juvenile black stork was caught in the vicinity of Bastogne (Province of Luxembourg, Belgium) and was fitted a PTT platform weighing about 75 grams. The locations obtained by the Argos system were sorted according to their precision and the fixes of good quality (A,0,2 or 3 in the Argos classification) were mapped. From the 19th July to the first migration day (28 August at 09h GMT), more than fifty percent of the 109 obtained fixes are located inside a zone of 100 km² (5.65 km radius) centered near the capture point. Moreover, that zone bas been visited nearly every day by the bird. Twenty more percent of the fixes are situated in a wider area of 300 km² (9.77 km radius). That region is covered by spruce plantations, deciduous forests and cattle meadows with numerous small watercourses and several ponds including fish ponds. Some medium distance (10 to 110 km apart from the home range centre) movements were also recorded, mainly eastwards and westwards. No difference has been evidenced in the home range use during the 4 decades of monitoring. The migration travel was monitored till the 06th September, when the transmitter failed due to a technical misconception. At that time, the stork was located in the region of Fès (Morocco). Within 9 days, the bird has travelled a distance of ca 2,400 km (mean daily movement: 237 km). The Pyrenees were crossed in the high valley of the river Tech (Pyrénées Orientales, France) only 3 days after the departure and the bird has been seen by Spanish colleagues when flying across the strait of Gibraltar (Tarifa, 5 September, 07.55 h GMT).