One bird's winter movements

All the Little Eagles that breed in the Canberra area are now back in their breeding territories after their winter away. A sample of six of these were fitted with GPS-tracking devices and their movements followed during this past winter. They followed similar routes and over-wintering areas as those described in the previous post below, in the second annual report. It will take time to fully analyse all these birds' movements, so for now, here is an example of one bird's movements during the non-breeding period.

An adult female Little Eagle, Y2, 

flying over her territory

The same bird in the hand after being fitted with a GPS-tracker and individually coded bands, Y2.

And a photograph of her face while in the hand. The plumage colouring is highly variable between birds, which helps individual identification.

This annotated map shows the route of this bird's return migration to Cape York in northern Australia. The large dots are locations where she spent an overnight stop. She left Canberra on 14 March 2020 and arrived at her over-wintering area on 24 March, a journey of ten days. She spent four and a half months in a well-defined area of tropical savannah. Then she set off on her return flight on 17 August, reaching Canberra on the 31st, after a slightly longer journey of 14 days. She is now back in the same territory she occupied in 2019.