Migration begins

Flow got a very early start to his migration, heading south on the 21st of August. He worked fairly quickly down to Cape May, NJ, where he spent a couple of days before heading northwest into Delaware and southern Pennsylvania.

On 12 September he moved south, but circled around and is fishing in Chesapeake Bay. He's doing his migration on the installment plan. Southbound Ospreys are never in a hurry, and that's especially true of juveniles. They get distracted easily!

Flow...

... is a young male recently fledged on the marshes of the Allyn Cox Reservation of the Essex County Greenbelt Association, who sponsored this and Blackie's transmitters. Greenbelt, Essex County's Land Trust, has a Osprey nest-cam on the marsh right in front of their offices.

He's a really handsome youngster, with a dark head like Blackie's. He weighed in at a pretty typical 1.28 kg, just over 3 poungs.

As an only child, he's getting lots of food. Every time I log onto the Greenbelt Osprey cam, he's chowing down on a big ol' fish.

An early start

For the first 9 days after Flow was tagged, he stayed close to home, commuting between his nest and Haskell Pond, about 2 miles southeast.

On the 20th, he made his first big trip getting almost to the Merrimack River. He spent the night on the 19th part way back to his nest. On the 20th, he flew back home, made a quick pass through and went north again. This turned out to be the start of his migration.

20-28 Aug 2014

Flow started migrating on the 20th, only nine days after we tagged him at his nest in Essex, MA. Four days later he was at Cape May, NJ, where he spent two days before heading northwest to the Newark, DE, area (just 30 miles west of "Map Central" here in the Philly 'burbs). I suspect he was spotted at least once by the counters at the Cape May hawk watch.

 

Another short hop south--sort of

Flow does not appear to have gone "all in" on this migration thing. He went south on the 13th, after a bit of a false start a day or so before, but then circle north along the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, where he's now settled in again.

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