Lots of news

On 8 February a team from Oman arrived in Madagascar to cooperate for three weeks with Malagasy researchers working on sooty falcons.  This effort was part of a partnership that was initiated back in autumn 2013 with a visit by the Malagasy scientists to the falcons' breeding area in Oman, and is funded by a Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) with support from the Office of Conservation of Environment (OCE) in Oman.  The team spent its time surveying many parts of Madagascar, determining that most of the sooty falcons appear to be spending the non-breeding season in the southern parts of the country.  In due course more detailed information will be published.  Two other objectives were to capture and fit a sooty falcon with a satellite-received transmitter and to take what opportunities arose to educate the public about sooty falcons and their status.  The pictures below show the team with a bird caught at Ivato airport, a crowd around Gilbert Razafimanjato of the Peregrine Fund Madagascar and Mansoor AlJahdhami of the OCE, who are talking about sooty falcons, and a map of the movements of the sooty falcon (named "Ivato") during its first day wearing a transmitter.

The sooty falcon team and the airport manager of Ivato airport just prior to release of the tagged sooty falcon (being held by Waheed, 3rd from left) (Photo: M. AlJahdhami)

Gilbert Razafimanjato talking to a crowd about our sooty falcon work in Oman and Madagascar. (Photo: M. AlJahdhami)

Movement by "Ivato" during his first day wearing a satellite transmitter.

Also, and not to forget... 130393, a juvenile sooty falcon fitted with a satellite transmitter in Oman by the same sooty falcon team working at the moment in Madagascar has remained in the same general area in southern Madagascar, SE of Morombe.  The team were not able to visit this particular area, but were nearby and report that many locust were available and numbers of sooty falcons were seen roosting in baobab and eucalyptus trees.

130393's movements during 16-26 February 2013

130393 settles in for the week

For the last week 130393 has stayed within a limited areas of about 20 x 15 km.  In the map below, the dark blue locations are of the highest quality.  Because the best quality is attained when the bird is not moving, these locations are almost certainly when the bird was perched. In fact, given the timing of these, many, especially the clusters are almost surely places where 130393 roosted overnight.

130393 settles down a bit

Since the last post, 130393 has been moving around in a fairly limited area of about 300 sq km just south of Lake Ihotry in SW Madagascar.  The sooty falcon team is headed that way, but at the moment their path does not intersect with where 130393 has been spending its time.

130393's movements during 6-16 February 2014.

Lots of News

First, we have had on the ground follow up of lost signals for two of our birds:.  13039, which disappeared near Bishah, Saudi Arabia on 14 November and 13039, which disappeared near Mombasa, Kenya on 17 December.  In both cases the on-the-ground teams found no sign of the birds... which is not too surprising. However, such follow up is important and we are grateful to our cooperators on the ground. We are still receiving a signal from a bird that apparently went down in eastern Ethiopia on in late November.

Second...our Omani team is on its way to Madagascar to conduct field work with the Peregrine Fund there. This work is being part-funded by the Convention on Migratory Species.  In October, under the same project, Malagasy biologists were in Oman during the sooty falcon breeding season (see earlier post), and helped fit the satellite tags to falcons.  Plans for the project are to fit another satellite tag to a wintering sooty falcon, conduct surveys, and collect data on sooty falcons that we catch.  We are hoping to make some blog posts during the field work, so visit this site often over the next three weeks, and see what we are up to.

Third... 130393 is still alive and moving around in southern Madagascar.   It is currently just south of Lake Ihotry near the west coastal town of Morombe.

Movements of 130393 during 31 Jan - 9 Feb 2014