How humans teach northern bald ibises to migrate
Image: Waldrappteam
For a young northern bald ibis, the person sitting in an ultralight aircraft is a familiar figure: someone who has fed and cared for it since its first days of life. Following them into the sky begins with a bond established long before take-off. Waldrappteam uses this attachment in human-led migration: caregivers raise young birds, train them to follow an ultralight aircraft and guide them towards wintering grounds in Spain.
The sight might remind film fans of Fly Away Home. The 1996 film drew on Canadian aviator Bill Lishman’s real work and is renowned for its breathtaking cinematography featuring a flock of Canada geese following an ultralight aircraft through the sky.
Why northern bald ibises need human help
Migration can look like something birds simply know how to do. Young northern bald ibises, however, learn their route to wintering grounds by following experienced flock members. Captive-bred birds starting a new population need someone to fill that role.
That creates a particular problem when restoring a population that disappeared centuries ago. Northern bald ibises were once found across parts of Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East, but vanished from central Europe more than 400 years ago. Habitat changes and direct persecution are among the factors associated with their disappearance. With the local population gone, there were no experienced birds left to guide a new generation along its former routes.
Waldrappteam developed human-led migration to supply that missing first lesson. The historical wintering destination of the central European ibises is unknown, so the project selected suitable sites where a new migration tradition could take root.
The 2026 journey belongs to a conservation programme spanning decades. During the first European Union LIFE project, from 2014 to 2019, Waldrappteam carried out six human-led migrations and released 162 young birds. A second phase runs from 2022 to 2028, bringing together ten partners in Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland under the leadership of Vienna Zoo. It combines further guided migrations with new breeding colonies and measures to improve the birds’ survival.
From hand-rearing in Austria to flight school
The 2026 birds came from Tierpark Rosegg in Carinthia, Austria, before moving to a training camp at Binningen, near Lake Constance in Germany.
The method begins with very young zoo-born chicks and two dedicated caregivers, who spend their days feeding, tending and interacting with them. Through parental imprinting, the birds form a strong attachment to those particular people. The caregivers wear yellow outer clothing to make themselves recognisable at a distance; their faces remain visible. Restricting close contact to the foster parents helps avoid encouraging familiarity with everyone the birds encounter.
Flight school begins on the ground, with the aircraft moving without its parachute canopy deployed. As the birds become accustomed to the machine and its engine noise, training progresses to short flights and increasingly long excursions. A foster parent rides behind the pilot, giving the birds a familiar individual to follow.
Once migration begins, a ground crew dismantles the camp and aviary after take-off, drives to the next stopping place and sets them up again. Rest days and the weather determine when the flock can continue.
A new migration route to Andalusia
The original human-led route took birds across the Alps to southern Tuscany. According to conservation foundation Stiftung Artenschutz, warmer autumns delay departure, leaving the ibises attempting the mountain crossing when thermal updraughts are no longer strong enough to help them reach the necessary altitude. These rising columns of warmer air provide lift, so a crossing accessible earlier in the season can become a much harder obstacle later on.
The response has been to establish an alternative corridor towards Andalusia, first tested in 2023. It gives birds from north of the Alps another way to reach wintering habitat, avoiding the Alpine crossing.
In 2026, that meant travelling through Germany and France into Spain, with progress sometimes interrupted by the flock itself. On 20 September, eight birds turned back after take-off from Olocau. The flight team abandoned the onward stage and returned too; five birds rejoined it on the way back. Some legs of the wider journey were covered by road.
What the 2026 journey achieved
The flock reached two destinations: 15 birds stayed with the Alive Foundation in Catalonia after arriving on 13 September, while 15 continued to the wintering area near Vejer de la Frontera in Andalusia. The 2 October entry records that second group’s arrival at its release aviary, with release into the wild planned for winter.
Waldrappteam’s website can appear inconsistent: its summary refers to 30 birds, while its counter and final arrival entry say 15. The detailed diary clarifies that these figures refer to the original flock and the group that continued to Andalusia, respectively.
When the birds take over
After acclimatisation and release, the young birds usually remain in the wintering region until they approach breeding age, generally in their third year, although some make earlier excursions north. The aim is for returning adults to breed and their offspring to learn the autumn route from experienced flock members.
That independence also depends on surviving the hazards along the way. A population study covering 2008–2019 found that further releases and action against major mortality threats, including illegal hunting and electrocution, were needed to move the reintroduced population towards self-sustainability.
That gives the aircraft-following spectacle its purpose. The foster parents help the first generation make a journey so that future generations can follow other ibises.
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