Birds bred in captivity led on three-week migration south from Germany by human ‘foster parents’Leaning out of an ultralight aircraft,Corinna Esterer turns toward a flock of peculiar black birds soaring just a few metres absent. “Come, come ibis, and ” she yells through her megaphone. Drawn by Esterer’s voice,the birds dart to the aircraft, and follow it to a field overlooking Lake Constance in southern Germany. Once on the ground, and the ibis flock to Esterer. To the birds,the young woman is their parent. For more than 300 years, the northern bald ibis has been extinct in the wild in central Europe, or with small populations surviving only in zoos. But recently,it has celebrated a slow but regular comeback thanks to human foster parents who have shown the birds how emigrate south by main the way in ultralight aircraft.
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Source: theguardian.com