Migration - 2006
Introduction:
Status of our migration studies.
Old Birds: Updates on birds
tagged in '04 and '05.
New Birds: Bios and
details of tagging five nestling or fledgling Ospreys in 2006.
If you would like to be included in an email list to receive a notice each time maps are updated, send me an e-mail: rbierreg@uncc.edu
| Migration continues in October (scroll down to pick up the earlier migrations): Lew - Virginia and south. Della - In South America. Erica - Migration begins and ends. Comet - Cuba and beyond. Moshup - Florida and south. Jaws - Back around his first wintering area, but not quite there yet.
|
 |
Migration
continues:
|
 |
|
Maps for 2006 |
 |
|
This is the seventh year of our study of Osprey migration. Since 2004 we have been concentrating on tagging juvenile birds. The migrations of more than 150 adult Ospreys have been documented in North America, mostly by Mark Martell during his time at the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center. As a result we have a quite detailed understanding of how and when adult Ospreys migrate. We know the routes they take. Almost all east-coast birds go through Florida to Cuba to Hispaniola and on to South America. Some New England birds think Florida or the Caribbean islands is far enough south, while some Florida adults, for reasons difficult to conceive, migrate deep into South America. |
Other Florida adults stick around for the winter. Adult females migrate about a month before males, and adults of both sexes are very faithful to their chosen wintering grounds. Because young experience a very high mortality rate and satellite transmitters are very expensive, only a handful of first-year Ospreys had been tagged prior to 2004 and thus their migration is poorly understood. When do they go south? How do they find a reliable wintering area? Do they spend time exploring or chose the first good spot they find?We know from traditional banding studies that they stay on the wintering grounds for at least a year and a half. Do they all return in their second year? Do they go all the way home on their first return?
With five young tagged this year (details below), we have now tagged nine fledgling Ospreys, which is probably about as many as have ever been tagged. By "cherry picking" young from old, established breeding pairs, and trapping young that have already been flying for a couple of weeks, we have significantly beaten the odds--only one of the five young tagged prior to this year did not make it to the Caribbean.
On his migration south in the fall of 2005, our only tagged adult Bluebeard was shot (almost certainly) just a couple of hundred miles north of his wintering grounds. That left only Jaws, a fledgling tagged in 2004, as a candidate to return to Martha's Vineyard this spring, and his safety was in question as the year began. Our last signals from him were in December of 2005, and those were intermittent. We suspected a malfunctioning transmitter, given that he had been in what appeared to be Osprey heaven down in Colombia, with lots of fish and no one around that shoots Ospreys. Lo and behold, in March someone spotted an Osprey flying through eastern NC (when Jaws should have been moving back for his first trip home). In late May his transmitter turned on for a couple of days as he arrived back in his natal area. There's some sort of problem with his solar panel, so we only get very sporadic messages from him, but he's out there. The two one-year olds from the "class of '05" have both settled down (Conanicus in Cuba and the peripatetic Homer in Venezuela) and will spend another year, at least, down south before heading home.
WHO'S WHO? (Click on the bird's name to get to its series of maps.)
Jaws - Tagged in '04, this young male is back on the Vineyard (and was recently spotted on Cape Cod!) with a mal-functioning transmitter. With luck, we may be able to retrap him next year and get the bad transmitter off him.
Homer - After turning a 3,500-mile migration into a 5.200-mile odyssey (he was named for the pond near his nest, not in anticipation of his extended travels!), Homer finally (March) settled down and is moving back and forth between two locations in central Venezuela. He has found a reservoir to his liking and in April was making occasional trips some 30 miles to a mountain valley west of his reservoir. He has shown a predilection to mountain rivers throughout his migration. We expect him back on Martha's Vineyard in the spring of '07, in time to celebrate his second "hatchday."
Conanicus - Our Rhode Island youngster, tagged as a recent fledgling in '05, continues to frequent the Zapata swamps in southwestern Cuba. He should be back next year as well.
| Five new young were tagged this summer. Three in Delaware, thanks to a new program based at the Cape Henlopen State Park, one in Rhode Island, and one on Martha's Vineyard. The Rhode Island bird, a young male named "Comet" was tagged thanks to a grant obtained by the Rhode Island Audubon Society as part of the on-going Conanicut Island Raptor Project. | |
 |
Della - A female tagged prior to her fledging off a platform nest on the expansive salt marshes of the Delaware Seashore State Park. |
 |
Erica - Another nestling tagged a few
miles north of Della's nest. Pictured with me and Erica is Richard Julian,
manager of the Cape Henlopen State Park Nature Center and guiding force
behind getting the satellite project going at the Park. Erica is wearing a
hood to keep her calm during the process of mounting the transmitter,
which is visible on her back.
|
Lew - This young male was trapped on his nest in Lewes, Delaware. His nest is atop a 26' pole and we needed all the ladder we could find to get up there. His big sister was also trapped, but only got a Fish and Wildlife Service band.
|
Moshup - One of three young fledged
by the most productive pair of Ospreys on Martha's Vineyard, this bird was
named for the chief of Wampanoag legend, often pictured standing in
Vineyard Sound holding a whale in his hand. While we don't expect our Moshup
to make such
spectacular catches, he's already fishing the same waters. Moshup was seen
practicing low-angle dives into the Sound just prior to his capture. He
would crash into the water, bob around for a few seconds and then take off
and do it again. |
|
Comet - is Conanicus's younger (1 year later) brother, trapped on his nest at Marsh Meadow in Jamestown, RI. He was named for Metacomet, AKA King Phillip, of the Wampanoag tribe. The Wampanoags were the chief enemies of the Narragansetts (Conanicus's tribe). Not that we're trying to get any sibling rivalry going here.... Because Comet's parents arrived and quickly got down to the business of nesting, we suspect they're the same adults that nested here last year, making Conanicus and Comet full siblings.
  |