Move continues

The adult eagle (82163) has reached Kunashir Island. Today's e-mail has brought the last bit of the GPS data for the past days, so I was able to construct the GPS track. From Sakhalin Island the eagle went to Hokkaido, Japan, and then to Kunashir, and subsequently to Iturup Island. Interestingly the bird liked the same spots on the coastline of Hokkaido as it used last autumn migration. Although the fixes last year were earlier than this year.

Meanwhile the youngster (62629) moved to Sakhalin Island, and now remains in the Tymn River valley. I feel that it will move south very quickly.

New movements on the solstice

Today the batch of coordinates brought some exciting news. The youngster (65629) moved south and is now on Sakhalin Island.  We had feared the worst as it was not moving much and cold weather and ice was closing in on it. 
The adult is on Iturup.  If you look back at blogs from last December 2009 -January 2010, you will see that both tagged birds were there at this time last year.

Kunashir!

Today the adult eagle reported itself from the Kunashir island. The fixes were coming from the northern tip of the island, a low elevation cape with some lagoons.

The youngster has suspiciously remained on the Kol River and has remained there depsite of very chilly weather (-15 to -22 C). Last GPS fix was taken on Dec. 7.

We will have to wait for the next transmission cycle to see if there have been any changes.

Youngster stays, adult goes!

End of Novemrer and beginning of December was a stationary time for our two year old bird. It still remains near the Kol' river. There is complete snow cover now and there were some cyclones. I have checked on the temperature of the PTT on the bird, and it has remained within -7 to +10 C, while ambient temperature at the surrounding meteo stations were in the range of -18 -22 C suggesting that the bird is OK. A close look at the vegetation between the fixes revealed lot of paths between forest bits heading toward the river. No doubt that these are bear runs, and this suggests that the river is full of fish. The question remains if the fish are still available or has ice blocked them from the eagle(s).

The adult set off from the Kol' river on November 23, and on November 25 it crossed the Tatar straight and to Sakhalin Island. Steadily moving along the island the eagle managed to reached the south of the Island by 1 December, where it still remains. Remarkably the trajectory of the eagle is close to that it followed in November 2009. Interestingly this year path is 1 week delayed compared to the previous winter.

Uneventful fortnight

It appears that both the adult and young eagles have remained at the same place since the end of October. Both adult and young have chosen to stay on the Kol' river, where the adult visited in early November 2009, and the youngster passed through in May 2010 on his way north.

I have to point out that the youngster come within dangerous proximity of the Belaya Gora gold mine tailing, which is clearly seen on the satellite shot.

Current conditions at the Amur River estuary, some 50 km south are -5 C, suggesting that the river is probably frozen. However there is a chance that there is some fish available at the rapids. The landscape appears to be tundra, with some trees along the river. The GPS points (yellow for adult and red for youngster) indicate that the birds utilize these trees.

Meeting?

It seems that our prediction was correct, which may mean that we are starting to understand the eagles' migration. The young eagle seems to have caught up with the adult. Yesterday a transmission from the younger bird was from the same region near Belaya Gora where the adult was a week ago. In the next few days we'll see if the adult moves ahead, or the two migrating eagles move synchonically. In the map the adult track is in yellow, the youngster's in white.

Youngster on the move

The young eagle started migrating (again) on 16 October, and moved along the mountains. On 19 October it arrived at Ayan town, and has stayed in dangerous proximity of the Munuk airport. The airport is not a large one, but people are neareby. It looks that the eagle escaped the deathtrap of the Okhota river, but there are many perils ahead. Will it cut across the Tugur bay to avoid shooting there, like the adult did?