Adult eagle is ice hopping

Since 18 March our adult eagle has been living on the ice, ice hopping at least until 22 March. Meanwhile, the Argos system started adding a "0" in front of the PTT numbers. Hope our automatic system will not loose any data.

The youngster PTT62629 is not sending good signals. The battery probably is approaching the end of its life. There are some fairly low quality signals indicating that the bird started its migration on 18 March, but no more reliable GPS fixes... The last doppler fix was on 23 March.

Spring migration has started

On 9 March our adult eagle went along the foothills of the Hokkaido, and on 12  March has crossed La Perouse strait and after staying one day at the Cape Crillon, Sakhalin she continued to fly along the Sakhalin Island.

Interestingly her path is not quite following the coastline, was one could expect. She certainly preffer to stay at the foothills of the mountains. The Doppler locations suggest that she is still on the move.

Intrigued, Eugene

Wintering updates

At the end of February - beginning of March our eagles moved a bit.

The youngster  (Ptt 62629) moved from the Kunashir Island to Hokkaido, crossing to the Shiretoko peninsula, then evidently staying at ice in view of Hokkaido for couple of days moved to the Abashiri-shi Lake, where it remains now.

The adult female (PTT 82163) turned into a specialized highliander. It wend into a concealed valley of the Akan National Park, Hokkaido.

Eugene

Adult is on the move again

The adult female was re-tracked her route throug the mountains of Hokkaido, tending to stay at the edges of the forests overlooking fields.

Adult female goes inland

On 18 January 2010 the adult female crossed from Kunashir Island to northern Hokkaido. Rather than remaing on the sea coast, it moved immediately inland where it stayed in the alpine zone of the mountains. Last location we got was 2 Feburay 2010.

December-January at the fisheries

During the end December and first half of January both birds spent on Iturup Island. The island has several salmon runs and several fish hatcheries. The adult female (yellow line) spend her time in the southern part of the island, near the part known as Dobriy peresheek (Good isthmus), at the lake Dobroe and at pinnacles along the coast of Dobroye Nachalo Bay (Good beginning bay).

The immature bird was from the end of December 2009 to mid- January 2010 at the Reydovo hatchery some 7 km from Reydovo town. The hatchery has been operational since 2003 and has several small channels around it, full of fish.

November 2009 moves

Both adult and immature eagles went south in November, both crossed the Tatar strait between the Sakhalin and mainland on 17-18 November, and by the last week of November reached the Kuril island chain. The routes of the last stretch was a bit different. The adult female went along the Sakhalin island and crossed over to Hokkaido, and then, demonstrating a steady pace of migration crossed over from Siretoko peninsula to Kunashir.
The immature bird made a spectacular crossing from the Sakhalin island to Urup Island within 2 days. One fix on 19 November 2009 was obtained 20 km in the open sea. The fix for the 20 November was timed out, but on the 21 November the bird was at a small volcanic island of the Vavilov's spur, off the Urup Island coast.The bird arrived to the Urup island proper on 28 November, and then continued south to the Iturup island. On the Iturup the bird appeared on 12 December.