Recently, my husband pointed out an amazing story in the Audubon magazine about birds that were extinct in Central Europe. Today they are being reintroduced and learning where to fly by following a human-powered light aircraft.
Esther Horvath wrote, “Anne-Gabriela Schmalstieg and Corinna Esterer aren’t your typical foster mothers. For starters, the youngsters they care for aren’t humans — they’re captive-bred Northern Bald Ibises, a species that went extinct in Central Europe more than three centuries ago.
“For six months each year the two 20-somethings dedicate their lives to the birds, living onsite in campers at the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, and looking after the ibises from sunrise to sunset seven days a week. The entire first month the women must abstain from coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes because they have to spit in the birds’ food to make it easier to digest. The chicks eat as many as 15 times a day, dining on a mash of rat, mouse, and chicken, as well as fresh grasshoppers.
“When the ibises aren’t eating or resting, the foster moms spend as much time as possible bonding with them. …
“From day one, they call over and over: ‘Komm, komm, Waldies, komm, komm’ (‘Come, come, ibis, come, come’). When the chicks are three months old, their caretakers move them from the zoo to an aviary in Seekirchen, where they slowly become accustomed to a microlight aircraft and learn to follow it during training exercises, the women calling all the while. …
“The birds journey between the same breeding grounds their ancestors did centuries ago and a suitable overwintering site. Unlike back then, humans now watch them every flap of the way thanks to GPS tags attached to each bird. (To follow their annual trek, download the Animal Tracker app.)
‘For us it is very emotional,’ Schmalstieg says. ‘The birds follow the aircraft because we are sitting in it.’
If you get the Audubon magazine, you can see the actual craft with the birds following it high in the air. Read the online version here.
Photo: Wikimedia
Adult Northern Bald Ibis
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
What dedication it would take! And then, when they grow up, the humans have to deal with a literal empty nest!
LOL. And it must be a bit confusing to the kids when they get left behind — altho I don’t think it matters so much to birds. They are not counting on their so-called parents to help out with the grandchildren.
This is quite a detail: “dining on a mash of rat, mouse, and chicken, as well as fresh grasshoppers.”
Wouldn’t work for me. In fact, I keep turning down the roasted crickets that a student in an ESL class brought to the teacher.