Mid July 2014

Ivato has moved back to the island in the Dahlak Archipelago where he was 2 weeks ago.  This is the second time we saw him move away his presumed breeding island to areas along the Eritrean-Ethiopian borders.  Presumably the motivation for this is food (the island has little, I guess).  It would be interesting to know whether Ivato is in fact a breeder or just an adult "floater".  I don't know which would be more interesting.  Globally almost nothing is known about the floating population of raptors in any species.  If he is in deed a breeder these data would show an interesting behaviour of foraging remotely from the breeding site over many days in the weeks running up to breeding.  If he continues to move away from the island over the summer, then I would make the educated guess that he is a floater, and that he may have returned to the area where he was raised to try to find a place in the breeding population.  Even if he is not a breeder, I'd guess he might return here next year.

Ivato's movement from the Dahlak island to the Eritrean-Ethiopian border and back in early July 2014.

130393 has remained in the area of the Eritrean-Ethiopian border and is currently about 15 km west of the town of Senafe, Eritrea.  The behaviour of this bird and Ivato suggest that this area along the border, which is the transition to the Ethiopian Highlands and is where the Mareb River is located, and may be an area of relative prey abundance.

Movements of 130393 along the Ethiopian-Eritrean border in early and mid July 2014.