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MIGRATION 2002
As fall migration began
in 2001, we had five birds outfitted with transmitters. During the migration, we
lost two, KB and KD, crossing the Caribbean on their way to South America. Over
the winter, HX, the male of the original pair we tagged in 2000, died on his
wintering grounds at the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, leaving us
with just two birds to follow: KC, the male from the Felix Neck sanctuary on
Martha's Vineyard, and Ms. Charlotte, our adult female tagged in 2001 just north
of Charlotte, NC. Ms. Charlotte was the first of the birds I have followed to make
it south of the equator. She wintered in Peru and Colombia.
Click on the links to find the maps for each bird
listed below, or scroll through them all:
Ms.
Charlotte - Spring Migration
KC - Spring migration
KC - Fall migration
Ms. Charlotte
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Notes to be added.... |
KC Spring migration
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KC left his wintering grounds in
Venezuela on the 22nd or 23rd of March, a full week or more after the
first male Ospreys had arrived on Martha's Vineyard to begin staking out
their territories. He wasted no time getting back, arriving at his
territory only 16 days after starting to migrate!
His delay did give another male time to get
established and pair up with a female. This would have been a new female,
because the female from this nest died crossing the Caribbean in the fall
of '01. When KC got back, he used his "home court advantage" to
drive the intruder away and take over his nest, with the added bonus of
having a female ready to breed on hand. What a deal. |
KC Fall migration
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KC's nest failed again this
year. This pair has only fledged young 1 or 2 years in the past decade.
Despite the nest failure, he stayed around his territory until the urge to
migrate kicked in on 18 Sept. He took the inland route, leaving Delaware
and Chesapeake Bays to the east and passed near Washington, DC on the
20th. Five days later he was near Savannah, GA, where he stopped for three
days. He probably was facing headwinds or bad weather, and, with no reason
to hurry, he sat it out. Quite a few of our Ospreys have been through this
very area. When he got moving again, he took care of FL in short order and
made it to Cuba on the 4 Oct. He took more than two weeks in Cuba,
arriving on Hispaniola on 21 Oct. He wasted no time here, making the
roughly 400 mile crossing to Colombia on the 22nd. The last part of this
trip would have been at night. After resting up for five days, he moved
south and east into Venezuela and got to his wintering grounds on 1 Nov. |
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