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3 October: Jaws won the Race to South America! After he arrived at Guantanamo, Cuba, on the 28th, we got no signal until the 30th (problems at the Satellite download server). When he came back on the air, he had already left Cuba and was near Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. After a couple of days there, he took off and (not taking the shortest route across the Caribbean) made landfall on the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia, just north of Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela. He made this trip at night--the first location on this map for 10/2/04 was actually at 8PM on October 1st (map dates are Greenwich Mean TIme, which is 4 hours ahead of us). He flew 470 miles (756 km) in this non-stop crossing. It probably took him around 15 hours to do it.       Now begins the REALLY interesting part of following this bird. Up until now, his route was very predictable. Following a couple of simple instincts (go south and stay over land if at all possible) gets almost all East-Coast Ospreys to just about where he landed in South America. Now he has a whole continent in front of him and no place special to go. When we follow adults for the first time, once they hit S.A. they take off for some spot where they've wintered before. So we have a young bird with half a continent to explore in search of a good fishing hole! Stay tuned.

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