Easy trip home

Quin's travels between Cuba and his home on Tangier Island in the southern reaches of Chesapeake Bay are rather hum-drum, especially when compared to some of our other birds.

The interesting thing to ponder here is why haven't all Ospreys figured out that staying in Cuba is much safer than continuing on to South America, which entails crossing the Caribbean during hurricane season in the fall?

It probably has to do with competition. There may be as many as 40,000 Ospreys heading south through the Florida-Cuba-Hispaniola route each fall. That many Ospreys wintering in Cuba wouldn't work. So how and why did some birds "decide" in an evolutionary sense that they would move on? The area occupied by Ospreys in South America (mostly in the northern half of the continent, but they do get all the way down to Argentina) is vast, so there is plenty of room for all those Ospreys.

Long-distance commuting

As he did last year, Quin arrived at Tangier Island and immediately began commuting 40 (65 km) miles each way to a favorite fishing hole up in Salisbury, MD.

The fishing must be really good up there! In the first 26 days back from Cuba, he made 14 round trips between his nest (see below) and Salisbury.

Quin's nest

When he's not up in Salisbury at the all-you-can-eat fish camp, Quin spends a lot of time at this nest, the nexus of all the track in this map.