What's Next For The Project?

Now that the peregrine migration has ended for the 2007 season, we are entering the next phase of the Southern Cross Peregrine Project.

Kathryn Gunther and her friend, Mark Hopey, are currently surveying the coastal estuaries of Chile south of San Antonio for wintering tundra falcons. They are using Lula Belle, the project vehicle, for the survey. Lula Belle also carries a Honda four-wheeler ATV in back for working beaches during the project.

On 16 December, Zach Smith and his wife, Elizabeth, will join Kathryn for two weeks to continue this survey all the way south to Puerto Montt. We are hoping that Chilean team member, Christian Gonzalez, will be able to join them despite his heavy work load.

On 8 January, Mark Prostor and I will again arrive in Chile to tag seven more peregrines with GPS enabled satellite transmitters. We will team with Kathryn and re-visit her survey area. If possible, both Tom Maechtle and Christian Gonzalez will also be participating in this part of the study.

Our goal is to continue to study of the movements and distribution of "deep" peregrines in Chile and to document their movements north again in April 2008.

We are planning to provide field reports from Chile during the tagging phase in January so stay tuned.