Rob's update today on all his 2011 tagged ospreys.

Sad to report that we lost 4 of our 8 migrating birds in the space of about 9 days.

Saco (NH juvenile) and Katbird (MVY adult male) both went down over the Caribbean. Henrietta (MVY juvenile) had safely crossed the Caribbean and was settled down for a while along the shore of the Gulf of Venezuela where Buck spent a lot of time. She then started moving inland and stopped moving in the middle of nowhere. Her loss is hard to figure out. It always might be that she lost the transmitter, but I think that's unlikely. She stopped moving in an area with very little human presence (based on the Google Earth images) and wasn't in a woodlot, so Great-horned Owls are not the likely suspect that they sometimes are. Sanford (adult male from the Westport River in SE MA) stopped moving just east of Orlando. This one's a real mystery. He was flying along heading south at 4 PM on the 23rd and then apparently fell out of the sky. He was cruising along about 25 mph at the time. Then, an hour later, the next location is in the middle of a cattle pasture only 3 miles from the 4 PM location. I can't come up with a scenario that fits the data. We should be able to get this transmitter back, so there may be some clues when we find the transmitter.

Someone needs to tell Mother Nature that we don't need any more "teachable moments" about the dangers of fall migration. We get it.

Of the survivors, Senor Bones is safely nestled into his mountain hideout in Colombia, North-Fork Bob is safely across the Caribbean in Colombia, Buck seems to be enjoying life on Cabo Beata in the D.R. after two aborted crossings of the Caribbean, and Snowy has at least temporarily settled down in the D.R., which makes us nervous, given that all 4 juveniles that tried to overwinter in the D.R. were shot.

Belle and Thatch, our teenagers on their "gap years" down in Amazonian Brazil seem to be fine.

All maps are pretty much up to date: http://www.bioweb.uncc.edu/bierregaard/migration11.htm

Rob

This may help understand Rob Bierregarrd's tagging plan/plans...they don't always go as planned...check the 2011 tagging season and also 2010.


Tagging new birds in 2011: Adults- We tagged only 2 of the 5 adult males we planned on tagging this spring, "Tucker" in Mattituck on Long Island's North Fork, and "Katbird" on the shores of Katama Bay on Martha's Vineyard.
Juveniles- I keep trying to wrap up the studies of juvenile migration, but somehow can't quite kick the habit. We tagged four this year.

The 2010 season began with tagging four more adult males. 2009 was going to be our last year for the study of junvenile migration, but that didn't work out. Our Delaware colleagues at the Friends of Cape Henlopen State Park had raised money for a transmitter for a young bird in 2009, but their target nest did not produce any young, so they deferred the deployment of their transmitter to 2010. Additionally, we finally got Meadow's transmitter back, a year after the bird was shot, so we had another transmitter to put on a young Osprey.
     In May, we put transmitters on a male (Neale) in Jamestown, RI, two males on the Westport River in southeastern MA, and another male on Nantucket.
     At the end of the summer tagging season, we had one more transmitter for a young bird on Long Island. As it turned out, we caught an adult male before we caught the juvenile and I made the snap decision to put the transmitter on the male, rather than waiting for the youngster. The alternatives were to increase our sample size for juveniles from 31 to 32 or increase our sample size for adult males from 8 to 9. I went with the bigger bang for our buck and tagged the male, which turned out to be a marauding neighbor and not the adult male at the target nest. Details on the 2010 map page (Maps)

I just got in from work to find this from Rob Bierregaard. Sanford's last update, for anyone behind, was posted 10/31/11 in the main update box on the Migration 2011 page. This is good news, we will have an answer! Please understand, to avoid confusion, the "discussion group" has no connection to the Hancock Forum.

On Nov 4, 2011, at 1:19 PM, Rob Bierregaard wrote:

Just checking to see if anyone on this discussion group is not on the
regular list that I send update announcements to. If you are, please
let me know.

One bit of good news after all the bad news of the last couple of
weeks is that Sanford's PTT has been recovered. Along with his body.
It's being sent to the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey to see what
they can tell about what happened. My current best guess is that he
was shot.

Thanks for bringing the report here, jazzel - sad news, though not unexpected as it seemed hard to think what else might happen in the middle of a field.

Is this posted anywhere public, or just part of a mailing to a core supporter group? The last update I could find on Rob's site just said that Sanford (or his transmitter) appeared to be down in a pasture, and I haven't had any recent email updates. Thanks!

Quote by: JudyB

Thanks for bringing the report here, jazzel - sad news, though not unexpected as it seemed hard to think what else might happen in the middle of a field.

Is this posted anywhere public, or just part of a mailing to a core supporter group? The last update I could find on Rob's site just said that Sanford (or his transmitter) appeared to be down in a pasture, and I haven't had any recent email updates. Thanks!

Judy, not posted public, but to "core supporters".

I owe you a PM reply will get that done asap I'm working on trying to save a nest in Portland, Oregon...never ends for me

Thanks, jazzel - and no hurry on the other. We both are quite busy much of the time.

Quote by: JudyB

Thanks, jazzel - and no hurry on the other. We both are quite busy much of the time.

Judy, you are blessed I'm very busy all the time....

A good site to follow, for anyone that believes…still a lot to learn/understand. Roy Dennis, believes.

I hope everyone will take the time to start at the home page….

Dyfi Osprey Project
http://www.dyfiospreyproject.com/home

History
http://www.dyfiospreyproject.com/histor ... sh-ospreys

I just got back from the migration pages and what an impressive osprey that Buck is,two trip's from, the Dominican and
he was smart enough to call it off due
to bad weather i gather and went back to the Dominican,then he moves further east in the Dominican and smooth sails
across to his wintering home,with this experience and intellligence,
and the endurace of an iron man athlete as he travelled thru many states trying to find his home,looks like Rob may
finally have a juvie that will make it to breeding
status.Jazzel,the bird that you mentioned was spotted somewhere around your area at the start of the season that
had a transmitter on it,i know that your
group searched for this bird,any theories by Rob as to who this bird is and was it ever spotted again,i hope i was not
just dreaming this,it was a long time now.