An adult male Olli was the first one mounted with a satellite transmitter in the field season of 2008. The summer home range of the crane extended beyond the Russian border and the bird frequently flew across the border in changing the foraging areas during the course of summer.
On 29th August the crane foraged next to the border between Finland and Russia, however two days later locations were received 870 km to the south-west. The crane spent three weeks in Matsalu-assembly area Estonia, were ten to twenty thousand cranes annually gather in autumn. Olli-crane used one of the ten known major roosting sites and stayed the night at Põgari-Sassi, whereas the feeding trips extended 8 to 10 km of the roost to the northeast.
Then the crane changed the roosting site from Põgari-Sassi to Kukeranna-Kõera, being on the south-western shore of the Matsalu-bay. In the morning of 25th September a location over Virtsu-town indicating that the crane was departing Estonia. The weather conditions including northerly brisk and a high pressure were optimal for migration.
On 27th September Olli-crane was located 1250 km to the southwest of Estonia in Hortobagy national park, Hungary. Then the crane thrived approximately 30 km to the southwest of Hortobagy village for one and half months.
According to one inaccurate location on 19th November Olli had flown to the southern border of Hungary. On 22nd November locations were of better quality and showed that Olli was in fact at the same Hatvani-csatak-wetland in the Szeri-puszta, where Petteri-crane was recovered from color bands by Hungarian crane researches ten days earlier. Olli was at the same site also two days later. The area is ca 45 km to the W of Matti’s locations which are situated in the vicinity Feherto-lake in Kardoskuti, S-Hungary. However, On 4th December Olli had headed 100 km west near the Danube-river in Hungary. This was surprising, since no Finnish cranes have been recovered there although the total number of color-band recoveries from Hungary is greater than 900. During the next 9 days no locations were received suggesting that the crane continued to an area inflicted by even more severe radio noise than the radio noise in Hungary.
On 13th December 2008 it was verified, that Olli had moved to Slano-Kopovo-lake, N-Serbia, where he was staying overnight together with Renttimä and some 7000 other Eurasian cranes. According to a Serbian crane watcher Kristian Barna an intensive crane migration took place 7.-10.12.2008. It is likely that also Olli moved then from Hungary to Serbia. Further, it seems increasingly likely that three out of five satellite cranes will try to overwinter in Hungary-Serbia area.
On the 18th of December 2008 Olli had moved in ENE direction and was located near the town of Timisoara in Rumania.
The next locations on Olli were received on December 28th 2008 indicating that the crane had headed 271 km WSW to Croatia. Olli had thus taken part the mass outmigration of cranes that took place after the Christmas as reported by Kristian Barna from N-Serbia. Ever since and also on January 9th 2009 Olli has been located in the vicinity of vast fish ponds in Croatia. Given that Renttimä headed there too and that according to an Estonian crane researcher Ivar Ojaste there is an old observation of an Estonian satellite crane from the same area, it appears that the place might be an important wintering ground both for Finnish and Estonian cranes.