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.