Elizabetha has started to take her fall migration seriously. Yesterday, she moved 228 km (142 miles) south across the island and is now only about 100 km due north of Sparrow King.
He is still on his summering ground and has shown no movement as yet.
Still no more signals from Fireball's transmitter although we know that he is moving south along Hudson Bay somewhere. We should learn more when he hits some sunshine.
30 September, 2008
29 September, 2008
Monday Migration Update
I must apologize for the lack of reports lately. I have been in Missoula, Montana, for the annual Raptor Research Foundation meeting over the last few days.
Elizabetha continues to move slowly south, taking her time en route across Baffin Island. No big dramatic jumps for her as yet. In fact, she appears to have stopped for now. We are no longer receiving any GPS signals as her battery is low (lack of sunlight caused by cloudy weather at high latitudes?)but we are still getting the less accurate Doppler signals showing that she is essentially stationary.
Sparrow King has not started his migration as yet. Last year, he began moving on 5 October, about another week from now. So we know that not rushing out of the Arctic seems to be pretty normal for him.
Fireball continues to move south but his transmitter is still low on power. After our last Doppler signals from near Churchill several days ago, we stopped getting any more signals until yesterday. Once again, Don picked up some faint Dopplers indicating that Fireball has moved approximately 601 km (373 miles) south over the last 5 days. He is generally following the shoreline of Hudson Bay and is about 30 km inland in northern Ontario.
We are hoping that when he arrives under clear skies to the south that his transmitter will get a good charge and start producing some more solid GPS signals once again.
Elizabetha continues to move slowly south, taking her time en route across Baffin Island. No big dramatic jumps for her as yet. In fact, she appears to have stopped for now. We are no longer receiving any GPS signals as her battery is low (lack of sunlight caused by cloudy weather at high latitudes?)but we are still getting the less accurate Doppler signals showing that she is essentially stationary.
Sparrow King has not started his migration as yet. Last year, he began moving on 5 October, about another week from now. So we know that not rushing out of the Arctic seems to be pretty normal for him.
Fireball continues to move south but his transmitter is still low on power. After our last Doppler signals from near Churchill several days ago, we stopped getting any more signals until yesterday. Once again, Don picked up some faint Dopplers indicating that Fireball has moved approximately 601 km (373 miles) south over the last 5 days. He is generally following the shoreline of Hudson Bay and is about 30 km inland in northern Ontario.
We are hoping that when he arrives under clear skies to the south that his transmitter will get a good charge and start producing some more solid GPS signals once again.
23 September, 2008
Elizabetha On the Move South?
Don McCall reports that we have obtained the first good signals indicating that Elizabetha has moved several miles away from her breeding area. We suspect that she is on the move but will know more by tomorrow.
He writes...
"...the latest fixes for Elizabetha show that, for the first time this year, she has flown south across a bay adjacent to her summer nest site. This very possibly indicates the beginning of her southern migration but the distance involved is only about 24 km (15 mi) so we will wait a day or two to confirm this."
Stay tuned tomorrow for confirmation.
He writes...
"...the latest fixes for Elizabetha show that, for the first time this year, she has flown south across a bay adjacent to her summer nest site. This very possibly indicates the beginning of her southern migration but the distance involved is only about 24 km (15 mi) so we will wait a day or two to confirm this."
Stay tuned tomorrow for confirmation.
Migration Underway! Fireball Transmitting Again
It appears that Fireball's transmitter has started working once again. Don received several signals this morning indicating that he has moved over 800 miles south of his nesting area and is currently near Churchill on Hudson's Bay.
Don comments...
"Yesterday's data (received early this morning) contain the first signals for Fireball since 01 September. These are only two poor-quality Doppler fixes but since they agree with each other they are probably valid; these points show that he has travelled 1301 km (808 mi) since beginning his migration and he is now near the western shore of Hudson Bay approaching Churchill. Since we don't know the starting date of his migration, we are going to use his average daily distance from his spring migration (174 miles/day) to approximate a starting date/time of noon (local) on 18 September. This estimated initial point is required in order to properly display the elapsed times and distances for each point on his migration map. This estimated starting date does not show on the maps that have just been updated but will appear tomorrow."
We are all delighted that his transmitter has been re-activated. Our best bet at this stage is that the increasing amount of sunlight at the lower latitudes has charged his battery once again but this is only a guess. We'll take what we can get.
Welcome back to the migration everyone.
Don comments...
"Yesterday's data (received early this morning) contain the first signals for Fireball since 01 September. These are only two poor-quality Doppler fixes but since they agree with each other they are probably valid; these points show that he has travelled 1301 km (808 mi) since beginning his migration and he is now near the western shore of Hudson Bay approaching Churchill. Since we don't know the starting date of his migration, we are going to use his average daily distance from his spring migration (174 miles/day) to approximate a starting date/time of noon (local) on 18 September. This estimated initial point is required in order to properly display the elapsed times and distances for each point on his migration map. This estimated starting date does not show on the maps that have just been updated but will appear tomorrow."
We are all delighted that his transmitter has been re-activated. Our best bet at this stage is that the increasing amount of sunlight at the lower latitudes has charged his battery once again but this is only a guess. We'll take what we can get.
Welcome back to the migration everyone.
22 September, 2008
Waiting for the Southbound Migration to Begin
Passing through the autumnal equinox, we are awaiting the departure of our two satellite-tagged Baffin Island peregrines, Sparrow King and Elizabetha. Mark Prostor and Don McCall are both on it, monitoring the signals from both birds on a daily basis. We'll let our "viewers" know as soon as either falcon starts south.
We are also hoping that Fireballs transmitter will suddenly switch on after presumably failing earlier this month. It only lasted 7 months. We were expecting a considerably longer operation time.
We will be returning to the Putu dune fields in Chile where we caught him earlier. We hope to find him there again and try to capture him a second time to remove the unit and see where it went wrong. We also plan to look for Seven and do the same.
In the meantime, both tagged falcons are no doubt fattening up in preparation for their long flight south to Chile.
We are also hoping that Fireballs transmitter will suddenly switch on after presumably failing earlier this month. It only lasted 7 months. We were expecting a considerably longer operation time.
We will be returning to the Putu dune fields in Chile where we caught him earlier. We hope to find him there again and try to capture him a second time to remove the unit and see where it went wrong. We also plan to look for Seven and do the same.
In the meantime, both tagged falcons are no doubt fattening up in preparation for their long flight south to Chile.
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