Moffett

'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
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	Travels so far 8 Oct-5 Dec 09 (signals lost). Moffett has finally left the Island. Hope he turned out the lights!      Moffet was the fourth out of four young tagged on Matha's Vineyard this summer to tackle our corner of the Atlantic in a single flight.      He left home around 10:00 on the 8th, flying SSE. He flew non-stop for about 66 hours, covering just over 1,550 miles (2,500 km).       He's so tough he didn't even stop to rest in the Bahamas, but kept right on going until he hit the far eastern tip of Cuba.      Moffett settled down in eastern Cuba, where he worked small rivers in a pretty sparsely populated region of eastern Cuba for about 2 months.      Our last signals were on 5 Dec, when he either died or lost  his transmitter. Scroll down for detailed maps of her travels.   Skip ahead to the start of migration (7 Sep). Final update (21 Nov).
	1-11 Aug 09. These are the four nests where we tagged young this summer and the first week or so of movement from each of the four.      Moffet was tagged at Mass Audubon's Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary on August 4th.      Details on Moffet's movements below.
	4-11 Aug 09. Moffet fledged a week or so before we caught him in the afternoon of the 4th.
	8-24 Aug 09 Moffet is the most adventuresome of this year's crop of youngsters. He's been over to James Pond, where he might have bumped into Isabel, and Crocker Pond, Homer's favorite fishing hole during his first summer back from South America. He's also been down to some of the south shore ponds.
	25 Aug-3 Sep 09. Moffet has left the Island. But only for a couple of day-trips. On the 31st he flew across Vineyard Sound to Naushon Island and on the 1st of September he flew up to Cape Cod, where he spent a few hours at Long Pond.
	3-7 Sep 09. This was a bit of a more ambitious trip, including an overnight stay on the evening of the 4th up by the Cape Cod Canal. He revisited Long Pond before heading  home.
	7 Sep- 7 Oct 09. Moffet stayed pretty close to home for most of this month, with one quick trip over to Long Pond on Cape Cod. He spent a lot of time around the Vineyard Haven Lagoon, as detailed below.
	7 Sep- 7 Oct 09. Moffet did a lot of fishing at the Lagoon over the month prior to his migration. Local scouts report Moffet wasn't the only Osprey fishing the lagoon, and at least one human fisherman was also aware of, and taking advantage of, the good fishing there this fall.
	8-11 Oct 09. Moffet set the new juvenile Osprey migration marathon record with this trip.      He left home around 10:00 on the 8th, flying SSE. He flew non-stop for about 66 hours, covering just over 1,550 miles (2,500 km).
	11-18 Oct 09. Moffet seems to have set anchor here. With all the momentum he seemed to have, I expected him to keep right on moving towards Hispaniola.      The way he is making short moves, with no particular direction, suggests that he may be done migrating. This would be fine with us, as one of the alternative would be to move over to Hispaniola--probably the Dominican Republic
	17-19 Oct 09. Moffet is working rivers in the area, which seems to have a very low human population density.
	19 Oct-20 Nov 09. Moffet is exploring an area about 20 mi. (33 km) across. Most of his time has been spent up and down a small river that cuts through the eastern tip of Cuba.
	21 Nov-5 Dec 09. Moffet continued to explore this rather sparsely populated eastern corner of Cuba, spending most of his time working up and down about 14 miles (23 km) of a narrow river.
	2-5 Dec 09. Moffet either died or lost his transmitter. This cluster of points looks a lot like the last signals for Hix and Katy, both of whom were almost surely killed by Great-horned Owls. I'm going to leave this in the "undetermined" category, but it looks like natural causes.      I hate writing obits for my Ospreys, but this was the deal we signed up for when we started tagging juveniles. Banding data and the return of young birds in areas where they have been released suggest that the rate of mortality we see is normal. Which doesn't make it any less disappointing when we lose a bird we've been following for many months and thousands of miles.

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