Sr. Bones - 2011
'09 maps for: Bea -- Buck -- Caley -- Claws -- Conomo -- Hix -- Hudson 09 -- Isabel -- Katy -- L.R. --
Moffet -- Mr. Hannah -- Ozzie -- Penelope -- Rafael
2010 maps for: Belle -- Buck -- Gunny -- Hudson -- Mr. Hannah -- Neale -- North Fork Bob -- Penelope -- Sanford -- Sr. Bones -- Thatch
2011 maps: Belle -- Buck -- Henrietta -- Katbird -- North Fork Bob -- Pemi -- Saco -- Sanford -- Sr. Bones -- Snowy -- Thatch -- Tucker
2012 maps: Art -- Belle -- Bridger -- Chip -- Cutch -- Jill -- North Fork Bob -- Rammie -- Snowy -- Sr. Bones -- Thatch
2013 maps: Art -- Belle -- Bridger -- North Fork Bob -- Rammie -- Snowy -- Sr. Bones
Osprey main page -- Migration page -- Migration09 -- Migration10 -- Migration 11 -- Migration 12 -- Migration 13 -- Home Page

	Fall Migration: 16-28 Sept 2011: Sr. Bones esta em casa! (He's back in his winter home) Sr. Bones started south this year on 16 Sept, a week later than the previous year. But that year his nest failed, so he didn't have any responsibilities in late summer.      His track south was almost identical to that of 2010 until he crossed the Caribbean. Most likely, back in 2010 (orange track) the wind was out of the west, and he went with the flow. In 2011, it looks like easterly winds pushed him to the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia.      He made it back to his winter hideout on the 18th. Scroll down for more maps beginning in January. Skip to spring migration. Skip to fall migration.
	Spring Migration: 24 Mar-6 Apr 2011: Sr. Bones is home on Nantucket. He had had smooth sailing almost the whole way. He took care of Cuba in 2 days, with no stops at fish farms!      He did the whole trip in a remarkable 14 days.
	1-31 Jan 2011: Sr. Bones is giving North Fork Bob a run for the money in the smallest winter home range contest. For both birds, the core area is about 1 km (0.6 mi) in diameter. Bones makes a few more sorties away from his core area than Bob does, so I'm giving the prize to Bob.      Sr. Bones should be heading north in a few weeks.
	1-28 Feb 2011: Sr. Bones continues to fish in his mountain redoubt.
	1-25 Mar 2011: Sr. Bones is finally heading home. He's taking a very different route than he used in the fall. When he was coming south from Hispaniola weather probably pushed him east. When he got to Venezuela, he corrected for his displacement and headed southwest to his hideout in the Colombian mountains. Now he's heading north, staying over land as long as possible. Once out over the Caribbean, he will hit either Hispaniola or Cuba, depending on how hard the trade winds are blowing.      Our Long Island bird, North Fork Bob, is also on his way north-his track is in the lower right of this map.
	25-28 Mar 2011: Sr. Bones left South America on the 27th, a few days after North Fork Bob. Two interesting points here. First, we see once again that the way north is usually different than the route taken coming south. Second, we see in both Bob and Senor Bones' northbound tracks evidence of the "stay over land as long as possible" strategy of Osprey migration. Starting from opposite sides of the Gulf of Venezuela, both birds left the continent on the northernmost points of land they could find. Crossing the water is dangerous (as we saw too painfully in last fall's hurricane season!) and to be avoided as much as possible.
	28 Mar-1 Apr 2011: Sr. Bones wasted no time with the Caribbean. We always like this, as Hispaniola and Cuba are dangerous places for Ospreys. Too many fish farms and uneducated farmers who think Ospreys will take their chickens.      Again we see that he's not following his south-bound route, so we know they're not navigating by landmarks.
	1-4 Apr 2011: Sr. Bones knocked off both Carolinas in a big movement day on the 4th.
	4-5 Apr 2011: Sr. Bones had a 5-state and two bays day on the 5th, winding up in New Jersey. He crossed Delaware Bay from Cape Henlopen to Cape May around midday.
	5-6 Apr 2011: Another big travel day for Sr. Bones, who arrived at his nest on the 6th, a remarkable 13 days after leaving his winter hideout in Colombia!
	6-30 Apr 2011: After arriving home on the 6th, Sr. Bones made a quick junket over to Chappaquiddick, on Martha's Vineyard. After an hour or so over there, he went back to Nantucket and got down to the business of breeding.
	1-31 May 2011: During most of May Sr. Bones would have been doing virtually all the hunting for himself and his mate. Most of the action was on the eastern half of the island-around Sesachacha Pond and the Head of the Harbor.
	1-30 June 2011: A carbon copy of May.
	1-30 June 2010 and 2011: Here is a comparison of where Sr. Bones was during June of last year and June of 2011. We see that the fishing seems to have been fairly similar in the two years. At least he was looking for them in the same places.
	29 June 2011: Here's the bundle of joy that Sr. Bones is catching all those fish for! It's right about 3 weeks old, so it hatched around the 8th, which means the egg was laid around the 1st of May, three weeks after Sr. Bones arrived from South America.
	1-30 June 2010 and 2011: A close-up of the fishing action in 2010 (pink) and 2011 (orange).
	1-27 July 2011: Apparently the fishing has changed. He may have been at Sesachacha Pond during the month, but he wasn't there much. Our locations are taken on the hour, so he could have made a few quick trips there and back.
	1-31 July 2010 and 1-27 July 2011: The fishing action in 2010 (pink) and 2011 (orange). It seems that whatever happens to the fish in Sesachacha Pond, it is an annual event.
	1-31 July 2010 and 1-27 July 2011: Another close-up comparison of the fishing action in 2010 (pink) and 2011 (orange).

August 2010	August 2011

	16 Sept 2011: Sr. Bones is off! He began this year's fall migration a week later than last year, but last year he wasn't taking care of a youngster.      He's on pretty much exactly the same route he took last year (the yellow line).     He was on Martha's Vineyard at 11, Newport RI by 1PM and at the end of the day roosted on Fishers Island at the mouth of Long Island Sound.
	16-17 Sept 2011: AOn the 17th, he was out over the Atlantic at 9AM about 90 miles from Fishers Island. He was flying a touch over 30 mph, so if we backtrack, he left Fishers Island around 6AM--an unusually early start. Typically, Ospreys begin the day's migration closer to 9.      He roosted for the night west of Rehoboth Bay in Delaware. We tagged a number of birds there in earlier years.
	17 Sept 2011: The hawk counters at Cape May probably saw him go over just before 2PM.
	18-21 Sept 2011: The weather was good and Sr. Bones took advantage of it, covering 630 miles (1012 km) in four days.      On the 19th he travelled almost 200 miles and roosted near Greenville, SC. On the 20th he moved about 85 miles down the coast to Bluffton, just north of Hilton Head Island.      Next leg was only about 55 miles with his roost 33 miles south of Savannah, GA.
	22-24 Sept 2011: Bones continued his steady move south down the coast. On the 23rd he moved about 130 miles down to the northern outskirts of Orlando. He was either bucking a headwind, sightseeing, or using thermals, because his ground speed for most of the 7 hours the trip took was less than 20 mph. I suspect that when birds are using thermals (rising up on a thermal and then coasting south until they find another) isn't as fast as straight flapping flight.      The 24th saw a bigger move of around 195 miles, most of the way doing over 20 mph.
	24-30 Sept 2011: AHe covered about 190 miles from his roost in the Everglades to his projected landfall in Cuba on the 25th. He left the keys heading out over the Florida Straight at 4PM. His last signal was at 9PM, with about 30 miles to go before reaching Cuba. He was only going around 15 mph, so he probably got to the coast around 11PM. Not sure where he spent the night, as we next got a signal at 10 AM. The 11AM location was close to the 10AM, so he probably roosted around there and was fishing before heading off down the spine of Cuba.      He got to Arroyo Muerto (Dead Arroyo--I don't like the sounds of that!) on the 29th and then took a day off on the 30th.      In 14 days, his distance covered (roost to roost) was 1,858 mi. (2,991 km). He averaged 133 miles/day (213 km/day).
	28 Sept-12 Oct 2011: Bones spent some time in eastern Cuba and then lingered around the Haiti/Dominican Republic border for about 6 days--making us nervous. The D.R. is not an Osprey-friendly place, as too many of our tagged birds have discovered.
	12-15 Oct 2011: Bones crossed the Caribbean using a much shorter route this year than last. Probably last year's crossing was with a westerly wind that blew him east, making the trip a lot longer than it had to be. It seems this year the Trade Winds were doing their thing, enabling him to make the short crossing to the Guajira Peninsula.      Our last fix for him is only about 240 miles (380 km) from his winter area.      While it's not on this map, he's now retracing pretty closely the track he took heading north back in the spring.
	15-19 Oct 2011: Bones retraced his spring route up the Magdalena River Valley, skirting the Cordillera Occidental (western) and arrived in his mountain redoubt on the 18th, 33 days after leaving Nantucket.      Last fall, he was blown pretty far east as he crossed the Caribbean, so he had to work his way back toward his winter quarters and cross the Cordillera to get back down into the Magdalena Valley.
	15-19 Oct 2011: Bones' route up the Magdalena Valley is a bit easier to see here. His wintering spot is just above Bucaramanga.
	15-19 Oct 2011: Here's a view looking southeast, sort of looking over Bones' right shoulder.