Sooty Falcons in Tanzania

Two of our sooty falcons are now in southern Tanzania فحل Fahal is about 250 km from the coast, and ديماني Daymani is located between Lake Malawi and Lake Rukwa.  If they keep up this pace they will arrive in Madagascar a full month before birds from last year.

Locations of two sooty falcons in late November 2014.

It doesn't look so good for our other tagged birds.  عويسي Owaisi was last heard on 6 November in southern Ethiopia.   قبس Qabas, جناح, Janah and Ivato are all sending static signals from southern Ethiopia-northern Kenya.  We are hoping that colleagues in these areas might help us find the tags/birds and determine the fate of the birds. Without trying to speculate, most of our birds/tags have gone "missing" in East Africa.  The only bird whose fate is precisely known is one that was shot in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010.

Sooty falcons in East Africa

So, all the birds are now in Africa, and have been for the last week.  In recent days they have slowed their migration. Presumably, this is because they have found places where food is relatively abundant and they are foraging.  You might recall that last year the birds we were tracking did the same thing:  they flew to East Africa and then their pace of migration slowed. Additionally, the single juvenile we are tracking, Daymani, is farther north than any of the adults, near Tana Lake in northern Ethiopia (See picture below).  Daymani's path is more similar to the juveniles we tracked last year and may suggest a pattern in which juveniles take a more circuitous route to the wintering grounds in Madagascar than the adults  As for the adults, Qabas is about 120 km SW of the Kenyan border town of Rhanu.Owaisi is about about 150 km NE of that town, but still in Ethiopia.  Fahal is about 40 km east of Lake Turkana in Kenya, and Janah is about 50 km south of Maslo, Ethiopia.  Ivato, the falcon we fitted with a transmitter in February in Madagascar, and who spent the breeding season in Ethiopia is about 40 km north of Tarba in Kenya.  Click on the map below to enlarge it.

Movement of sooty falcons in early November 2014.

Lake Tana, Ethiopia, where Daymani, a juvenile sooty falcon from Oman, has spent early November 2014.

All birds on the move, some in Africa already

It wasn't so long ago that the sooty falcon migration started in Oman, and now all the birds fitted with satellite transmitters have left the breeding grounds and are headed south. At the moment, of the Oman birds, one bird is in Saudi Arabia, one is in Yemen, one is in Ethiopia and two are in Somalia.  Ivato, having most of the past 3 weeks just north of Asmara, Eritrea, has now moved south and is in eastern Ethiopia.  See the map below.  If you click on the map, it should open up larger in a separate window.

Movements of six sooty falcons during October 2014