After a 53 day, 8,900 mile migration from the Putu dune fields of south-central Chile, Island Girl has returned to her nest site on Baffin Island in Canada.
She is hanging out on a ridge adjacent to a large lake about 143 miles south of the Arctic Circle. This is the same location where she spent most of last summer and we are assuming that she will be nesting there this summer.
Although no doubt coincidental, she is at almost the exact same meridian or longitude in Canada as the Putu area in Chile. Her general range in Chile was based at approximately 72.18 degrees south longitude. On Baffin Island, she is currently at about 73.04 degrees north longitude or within one degree of each other.
So this officially ends the 2010 study for this year. It has been an unforgettable season, I can definitely tell you that.
Thank you all for your continued concern and interest. And a very special thank you to Kathy Gunther, Don McCall, Clayton White and Felipe Camiroaga and Paul Paredes in Chile and all of the FRG members and friends that have supported this work.
Let's hope that Island Girl has a successful breeding season before she returns south in October to the land of earthquakes.
For those of you that have asked about the future plans for the Southern Cross Peregrine Project, I would strongly recommend that you stay tuned to the FRG website for future developments. We will be heading in a new and unprecedented direction with the project next year. You definitely won't want to miss it......
04 June, 2010
Photo of Island Girl's Roost Site in Montana
I received a remarkable e-mail from our friend and colleague, Rob Domenech of the Raptor View Research Institute, today. He has forwarded on a message from Charles Sullivan , USFWS, in Montana.
Charles was able to drive out to the roost site used by Island Girl on 19 May near Plevna, Montana, and take some pictures (see above). This is one of the first roost site photos ever taken on this four year long study.
She roosted on a wooden power pole located quite close to the road. As he mentions, this was one of the older three-phase cross arm pole types that have proven so dangerous to raptors due to electrocution.
Looks like Island Girl had a close call there.
Many thanks to both Charles and Rob for allowing all of us to learn more about her roosting behavior.
03 June, 2010
Island Girl Reaches Baffin Island
On Tuesday, Island Girl really demonstrated her determination to get back home as she made up for lost time due to weather last week. She had a spectacular day!
She changed her heading hard to the east and flew 678 km (421 miles) in a day, the second longest distance on her 2010 northbound migration.
She flew across all of Southampton Island, crossed Foxe Channel (the northern outlet of Hudson Bay) and roosted on the southwestern corner of Baffin Island.
Don McCall writes that she was just 100 km west of last year's presumed breeding site and "....she certainly had no trouble finding Baffin Island even though she approached from an entirely different direction-obviously wasn't using just landmarks. Really amazing...".
So she is determined to get home in time to breed.
She roosted on Tuesday night near the seacoast at about 264' elevation.
Don adds this important information.
"To see exactly where she spent most of last summer, select 'Northern Home Range Maps' for 2009 on the website; the Northern Migration maps terminate at her northernmost point on Baffin Island, but she then returned to a particular location on southern Baffin Island (where she probably had a nest site) for several months, and those points are shown on the 'home range' maps rather than the 'migration' maps."
She definitely wandered about Baffin last year before settling in.
She may have been a "floater" that finally found a mate and a vacant site for the first time in 2009. So it will be most interesting to see if she returns to the exact same location today and stays there for the rest of the season. Without the wandering.....
She changed her heading hard to the east and flew 678 km (421 miles) in a day, the second longest distance on her 2010 northbound migration.
She flew across all of Southampton Island, crossed Foxe Channel (the northern outlet of Hudson Bay) and roosted on the southwestern corner of Baffin Island.
Don McCall writes that she was just 100 km west of last year's presumed breeding site and "....she certainly had no trouble finding Baffin Island even though she approached from an entirely different direction-obviously wasn't using just landmarks. Really amazing...".
So she is determined to get home in time to breed.
She roosted on Tuesday night near the seacoast at about 264' elevation.
Don adds this important information.
"To see exactly where she spent most of last summer, select 'Northern Home Range Maps' for 2009 on the website; the Northern Migration maps terminate at her northernmost point on Baffin Island, but she then returned to a particular location on southern Baffin Island (where she probably had a nest site) for several months, and those points are shown on the 'home range' maps rather than the 'migration' maps."
She definitely wandered about Baffin last year before settling in.
She may have been a "floater" that finally found a mate and a vacant site for the first time in 2009. So it will be most interesting to see if she returns to the exact same location today and stays there for the rest of the season. Without the wandering.....
01 June, 2010
Island Girl Turns On The Speed Once Again
After the last series of weather-related delays, Island Girl seriously resumed her migration yesterday. She flew 596 km (370 miles) over the tundra on her way home towards Baffin Island.
She travelled well inland from the western edge of Hudson Bay and, surprisingly, never ventured out onto the ice in a direct line to the NE as we have seen before with some of our other tagged peregrines.
She wound up roosting at 64 degrees N latitude and approximately 34 km (21 miles) inland from the far northwestern shoreline of the bay.
Actually, it could be said that Island Girl has now moved past the northern boundary of Hudson Bay and is heading east towards Southampton island.
She is travelling through a most interesting area featuring long "swirling landforms" caused by the local geology. It is well worth viewing on Google Earth. Unique sub-region.
This season illustrates a little-known facet of peregrine migration behavior. Thanks to the use of satellite transmitters (thank you again Microwave Telemetry and FRG members), we can clearly see that they definitely do use different northbound routes once they reach the tundra. Her path this year is widely divergent from her path last year.
One possible factor for this variation could be the weather conditions that a bird encounters once they reach arctic latitudes including the amount of ice and snow still on the ground when they arrive.
She travelled well inland from the western edge of Hudson Bay and, surprisingly, never ventured out onto the ice in a direct line to the NE as we have seen before with some of our other tagged peregrines.
She wound up roosting at 64 degrees N latitude and approximately 34 km (21 miles) inland from the far northwestern shoreline of the bay.
Actually, it could be said that Island Girl has now moved past the northern boundary of Hudson Bay and is heading east towards Southampton island.
She is travelling through a most interesting area featuring long "swirling landforms" caused by the local geology. It is well worth viewing on Google Earth. Unique sub-region.
This season illustrates a little-known facet of peregrine migration behavior. Thanks to the use of satellite transmitters (thank you again Microwave Telemetry and FRG members), we can clearly see that they definitely do use different northbound routes once they reach the tundra. Her path this year is widely divergent from her path last year.
One possible factor for this variation could be the weather conditions that a bird encounters once they reach arctic latitudes including the amount of ice and snow still on the ground when they arrive.
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