During the first half of November all three of the Mongolian storks are staying at places which can almost certainly be considered as their wintering grounds. Erdenet is in an Indian state of Bihar, Marko near the Brahmaputra in Assam and Kublai a little more to the south in a small Indian state of Meghalaya near the Khasi Hills which is an area with highest precipitation in the world - the annual rainfall average exceeds 11 metres and maximum recorded rainfall is around 20 000mm/year (for comparison in Czech Republic it is twenty times less).
The biggest change occurred in the case of Tuya. After stopping for two weeks at a place she knows very well from last year near the river Chuang-che she moved further 690 km south west and has been staying there for a week. She is travelling slowest out of the Mongolian storks but she is not delayed in comparison with last year. Last year she flew through these areas on 7th November and subsequently stayed on another stop-over site until 17th November 2004 which was some 540 km to the south. We will see if she will stop at the same place this year. So far she is flying according to her "flight schedule" from last year with a subtle difference of only a couple of days even though the years are slightly climatically different. As Gombo wrote this autumn has been extremely sunny and warm in Mongolia and some migrants stayed on for longer. Only one week ago the temperature dropped below -5 degree Celsius but back then Tuya was already some 1600 km to the south.
