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.
Little Eagles will soon be lsited as Threatened IN Vic under the FFG Act. Do any of your birds make it into Victoria or do they head north? Conversely, do any Vic birds travel up your way?
ReplyDeleteYes, see the previous post. One adult and two 1st year birds have gone to Victoria.
ReplyDeleteFound the post and the data is very interesting. One thing I dug up is that the conservation status is different across the states (Vic: soon to be listed as Threatened; NSW: Vulnerable; QLD: Secure; SA: Secure etc. But essentially the birds form a single population across Australia. It seems inconsistent to have it listed in Vic and NSW but not QLD or SA. Getting Federal listing would be a major undertaking, as would applying for listing in evry state. Is there any push for states to recognise the threatened listing by other states when species cross borders so easily? The same situation would apply to most larger raptors and probably other bird species as well.
ReplyDelete