Elizabetha Arrives in Ecuador

After taking her time spending an entire week crossing Colombia, Elizabetha finally flew into Ecuador. Last night, she roosted just barely across the border and well up into the Andes Mountains.

In Colombia, she had followed what we are considering to be the "classic" coastal route, following the ocean shoreline and being "compressed" by the coast range. We have noticed that this geographic funnel really concentrates the west coast migrants along a narrow strip of Colombia coastline. Based on these findings, we would encourage our Colombian colleagues to consider looking there for migrant falcons in the future. We suspect that it will prove to be a major hot spot for South American birds in both spring and fall.

It might even have good potential as a peregrine banding site.

Elizabetha left the coast and then flew inland, high into the mountains, diverging from the coastal lowland valley route that we have identified in the past.

Will she become an Andean migrant all the way to Chile or will she return to the coast?