Elizabetha's Attempted Interception

Here are excerpts from Bud's report about his attempted interception of Elizabetha this morning in the middle of her migration:

"We drove out to the area, arriving about an hour after astronomical dawn. Those are huge tracts of unoccupied house/apartments on Google Earth. Incidentally, Guido thinks the GE maps for this area are about 5 years old.

The terrain consists of rolling hills covered in typical tropical habitat, some stands of dense forest, some open fields, all of it heavily vegetated. We easily found the road leading up to the plateau but it is rainy season. The dirt or rather mud road had big potholes full of water at the approaches and there was no way we could get through. It would have been difficult even with a 4WD vehicle. So we could not gain access to the open plateau.

We returned to the main paved road leading south down to the Port at Vaca Monte but it had tall pampas grass along the side of the road, too tall to see over in many places and no good vantage points there either. This was about 5,000 feet east from her last position.

We then found a side road heading west, easily visible on Google Earth and took that. There is a small lake to the north of it. From this road, I could look east towards her last position. I did see a bird of prey the right size perched atop a tree west of her area. It was gray on the back and white on the front (shining in the sun) and I think that it was a peregrine. It looked right but I had no scope and we are talking a half mile out with 10X binoculars. It flew when I showed it to one of the women. I then watched a large falcon fly east fairly low over the treetops but I cannot definitely say it was a peregrine. Sure looked like it to me. Even if it was her, there would have been no way to see the antenna at that range.

So my results will have to remain inconclusive."