Migration has started!

Today an adult sooty falcon fitted with a satellite transmitter (140655) started on migration.  It appeared to leave its breeding area around first light, and initially headed north.  By early afternoon local time it was located about 40 km NE of Fahud.

Movements of a third year sooty falcon as it starts on migration in 2014.

The map of its movements show some other features about tracking such small falcons. Because of weight constraints we are unable to use gps tracking technology on these small birds.  As a result, the location of the bird is not always very accurately estimated.  In the picture above, the location away to the NE from the islands is probably an inaccurate location and the bird probably did not fly out there.

Also, Ivato, the bird tagged in Madagascar last spring which spent the summer on the islands of Eritrea started migration.  That bird moved away from where it spent the summer on 12 October.  By 14 October it was located north of Asmara near the town of Filfil.  Here is what Wikipedia says about Filfil: "Filfil is a town in Eritrea, lying north of Asmara. Based on plantations, it is known for its surrounding rainforest and its animals. It is also within one of Eritrea's protected national forests."  If you look closely at the satellite image, you can see that the area in which it has spent the last 10 days is rather green in comparison to the surrounding areas. Ivato is not moving a lot, so there must be food, either small birds or insects.

Ivato's movements during the 20 days prior to 26 October 2014