Migration Map News – Summary of Autumn Migration

It is always fascinating to see what the birds we are following on Migration Map are doing and we started the autumn following 23 birds 7 of which were juveniles. The largest proportion of juveniles was amongst Common Cranes but we know well that due to natural selection a large proportion of juveniles do not reach their wintering grounds and only two cranes, Ahja2 and Juula2 have made it. Both of them are wintering in Tunisia, though Ahja2 spent last winter in Turkey. Changes of wintering grounds have also been recorded amongst Finnish Cranes.

One of five Ospreys, Ilze form Latvia, perished in Calabria, southern Italy. She was probably shot and injured and did not recover. Unfortunately the transmitter was not found, though twice our Italian colleagues tried to locate it. A second Latvian Osprey, Eriks, was lost in Gabon in October. We hope he is out of network area and will be visible again when he starts his spring migration. Estonian Ospreys winter in Africa, Ilmar in SW Angola, Piret and Erika in Sudan. Piret was also out of network area for 40 days until she went 200km northwards to winter. Piret made an interesting about turn on her migration when she reached the Sahara and turned suddenly turned back travelling 1200km. At the moment there is no data about what the weather was like at that point there, but something induced such a long extra trip. Her journey back to the Nile Delta seemed to be a struggle against dominant northerly winds.

The Black Storks are wintering in their usual places, Raivo near the fish ponds in the Jordan Valley, Priidu in Sudan and Central African Republic and Pirsu in Chad and Cameroon.

The juvenile White-tailed Eagles, Sillu and Meelis, did not migrate much (we think), but the transmitters on them are not working very well, and we don’t know their most recent movements. The last positions we have from November are that Sillu was in the Kaliningrad region of Russia and Meelis was on the Russian coast of Pskov Lake. We hope to see the birds again when they return in spring.

Among Greater Spotted Eagles probably the most interesting is the juvenile Tore, who we believe to be the brother of Tõnn. We lost him in Switzerland, after he was observed for a long time near Lake Constance by local bird watchers. We suspect the problems with the transmitter maybe shortage of sun light for the solar charger. Tõnn and Iti are wintering in their usual sites. Sander is the first GSE we followed from Estonia and is wintering in Africa. The wintering site of the Osprey Piret is only some 200 km SE of Sander.

Lesser Spotted Eagles Karin and Magnus made typical migrations for their species and arrived in southern Africa. The wintering area is large, including several countries (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South-African Republic). The hybrid Spotted Eagle Luule hit serious problems trying to cross the Ionian Sea from Greece to Sicily in December and sadly may have drowned. 

It is only a couple of weeks before some of these birds may start their spring migration...
Click here to see migration map...

Source:  Estonian Ornithological Society / The Eagle Club