As fall migration began in 2001, we had five birds outfitted with transmitters. During the migration, we lost two, KB and KD, crossing the Caribbean on their way to South America. Over the winter, HX, the male of the original pair we tagged in 2000, died on his wintering grounds at the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, leaving us with just two birds to follow: KC, the male from the Felix Neck sanctuary on Martha's Vineyard, and Ms. Charlotte, our adult female tagged in 2001 just north of Charlotte, NC. Ms. Charlotte was the first of the birds I have followed to make it south of the equator. She wintered in Peru and Colombia.
Click on the links to find the maps for each bird listed below, or scroll through them all:
Ms.
Charlotte - Spring Migration
KC - Spring migration
KC - Fall migration
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Notes to be added.... |
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KC left his wintering grounds in
Venezuela on the 22nd or 23rd of March, a full week or more after the
first male Ospreys had arrived on Martha's Vineyard to begin staking out
their territories. He wasted no time getting back, arriving at his
territory only 16 days after starting to migrate!
His delay did give another male time to get established and pair up with a female. This would have been a new female, because the female from this nest died crossing the Caribbean in the fall of '01. When KC got back, he used his "home court advantage" to drive the intruder away and take over his nest, with the added bonus of having a female ready to breed on hand. What a deal. |
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KC's nest failed again this year. This pair has only fledged young 1 or 2 years in the past decade. Despite the nest failure, he stayed around his territory until the urge to migrate kicked in on 18 Sept. He took the inland route, leaving Delaware and Chesapeake Bays to the east and passed near Washington, DC on the 20th. Five days later he was near Savannah, GA, where he stopped for three days. He probably was facing headwinds or bad weather, and, with no reason to hurry, he sat it out. Quite a few of our Ospreys have been through this very area. When he got moving again, he took care of FL in short order and made it to Cuba on the 4 Oct. He took more than two weeks in Cuba, arriving on Hispaniola on 21 Oct. He wasted no time here, making the roughly 400 mile crossing to Colombia on the 22nd. The last part of this trip would have been at night. After resting up for five days, he moved south and east into Venezuela and got to his wintering grounds on 1 Nov. |
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