Matti the crane spent the summer of 2008 in the same territory as in 2007. The pair did not produce any offspring this year either, but was seen twice in the field and I am pleased to say that Matti appeared to be well.
On 25th August Matti had departed his breeding grounds and located as expected at the same staging area as in the previous year by the Oulujoki-river in Muhos-municipality. Then the foraging and roosting locations were received from exactly the same fields and bogs as in the previous autumn. The crane was also located roosting on a bog in Muhos in the evening of 24 September.
On 9th October Matti was located near Warsaw, Poland 740 km to the south of Matsalu, Estonia. Matti had thus utilized the fine migration conditions provided by a vast high pressure over Eastern-Europe on 8th October.
Two days later Matti was found 193 km to the SSE of Warsaw at 1 pm: the crane had landed on a field. 27 minutes later the crane had however taken off and heading 93 km to SSE upwind. The crane settled by 5:16 pm and stayed overnight in Subcarpathian area near the southern border of Poland.
On 13th October Matti was located roosting at the Kondas-fish pond in Hortobagy, Hungary. It is thus the fourth satellite crane that has arrived to Hungary as yet. This autumn it arrived two days earlier as compared to the previous autumn. Unlike previous autumn Matti roosted nights explicitly at the Kondas together with Aino-crane. The foraging trips extended at a radius of ca 20 km to NE of the night roost.
Just like in the last autumn Matti moved to Kardoskuti Feherto area, Körös-Maros national park were also Renttimä was found on November 22nd 2008. Unlike Renttimä Matti did not stay overnight at the Feherto lake during 19.11.-26.11.2008 but instead 2,6 km N of the lake. However, during 28.11.-28.12.2008 Matti mostly spent the nights amidst Feherto-lake. Foraging trips extended at a radius of 20 km to the surroundings of the night roost.
On December 27th 2009 small migrating crane flocks departing Hungary were observed by Kristian Barna and his colleagues in N-Serbia. However, Matti lingered in Kardoskuti until December 30th 2008 when he was detected 54 km W near the western border of Csongrad -county, Hungary.
On January 1st 2009 Matti headed 82 km SW decending in the vicinity of the town of Zobnatica, N-Serbia. Matti postponed the shift from Hungary to Serbia by almost a month as compared to the previous winter.
On January 4th 2009 Matti headed 50 km ESE to the west side of Tisza-river only 7,5 km apart the most important crane staging area Slano Kopovo, N-Serbia where also Renttimä and Olli had recently been. On January 6th Kristian Barna and his friends counted 1200 foraging individual cranes next to the ruins of Aracs’ Medieval church ruins. In that flock they discovered two color banded cranes that had been marked in SW-Finland by Pekka Mustakallio. Matti wasn’t in that crane flock but was however located by satellites at the very same area between January 9th and 11th 2009.