|
1 Dec 2012 - 10 Mar 2013.
Here's a
close-up of his activity. The resolution's
pretty bad. The dark strip running up and down
the image is the Rio Ventuari. He does hang out
along the river some, but most of his activity
is along a small lake just beside the river. He
obviously has some perches he likes--where you
can see the balloons stacked up. |
|
15-18 Mar 2013.
Bob is heading
home 5-6 days earlier than the previous two
trips we've followed. He pretty much kept to his
script as far as his route goes, except he
zigged east when he got to some serious
mountains where he had zagged west in the
previous two trips. |
|
17-18 Mar 2013.
Here's a
rather busy map! The blue track is Rammie, our
adult male from the Westport River, who flew
through this area a day ahead of Bob. Rather
than stay over land, he decided to cross the
Gulf of Venezuela and was last heard from on the
Guajira Peninsula, which, if you've been
following these maps for any time at all, should
be very familiar.
Bob takes a different route, going up the Paraguana
Peninsula before taking off for Hispaniola. This
year he took an easterly route around some high
mountains. |
|
17-18 Mar 2013.
Here's Bob
deciding to take the long route instead of the
big climb over the mountains. |
|
19-25 Mar 2013.
While Bob is
only the second bird we've tracked to make three
complete migration cycles (Sr. Bones is the
other), we've had quite a few do two cycles.
We've never seen a bird retrace its wingbeats so
closely as did Bob this year (and last).
This is the classic route taken by adults on their
spring migrations. |
|
7-18 Mar 2013.
Bob is a
creature of habit. I won't get into much detail
here, as we've seen this before. There are
section of the trip where he flew almost exactly
the same route and other sections where he was a
few dozens of miles east or west of previous
spring trips. |
|
4 Apr 2013.
Bob made a
very surprising trip to Connecticut within hours
of arriving back on the North Fork.
The icon labeled "House for sale" is the nest he's been
trying to occupy for the past couple of years.
My spies on that marsh tell me that a pair of
Ospreys was already established on the pole and
working on the nest. Maybe Bob got home and
found "his" nest occupied and went over to
Connecticut to pout.
This nest had been productive for years. Last year,
when Bob tried to move in, there were a bunch of
Ospreys fighting over the platform. There was so
much strife that no pair could establish
themselves and for the first time in years, no
young were produced at this nest.
These scenarios are very common when one or both of the
adults that have been using a nest for years
don't make it back from migration. |
|
4-11 Apr 2013.
Bob made
another short trip across Long Island Sound.
Then he cruised around much of eastern Long
Island. The cluster of points west of Peconc Bay
are along the Peconic River, which is always a
favorite spot for him. |
|
4 Apr-5 May 2013.
These are all
the points we have for Bob around Mattituck. The
NFGC Nest is where we trapped him back in 2010.
We were trying to catch a juvenile and had the
nest baited with fresh fish. Bob, who didn't
belong to that nest, saw the fish lying in the
nest and figured if no one else wanted it, he'd
take it. He got a new transmitter instead of the
fish. The NFB Cell Tower Nest marker is where he
hung out a lot during the summer of 2010. There
had been an Osprey nest on the cell tower, but
it was removed by a tower maintenance crew. We
don't know if it was a complete nest, or just a
"housekeeping" nest, where young pairs who
aren't quite ready to breed go through most of
the motions.
Reports have come in that birds are building on the
tower again, but it's clearly not Bob this time. |
|
4 Apr-5 May 2013.
Bob was
spotted on Apr 30th flying by the nest with a
big fat bunker (menhaden) in his talons. |
|
12-18 Apr 2013.
Not much going
on now. We'll just watch his movements
week-by-week as the summer progresses. Too late
now to get a nest going, so Bob will have to
wait until next year to find an unoccupied nest
site and mate to his liking. |
|
19-25 Apr 2013.
Not much new
here, except for a visit to Gardiner's Island,
where 300 pairs of Ospreys once nested, before
the DDT crash. |
|
26 Apr-2 May 2013.
(The dates on the label
on the map are incorrect). Pretty much same old,
same old. He does slum it a bit down on the
South Fork at a few fishing holes he
likes.
He's not fishing out in the Bay, so it looks like the
big schools of bunker (menhaden) haven't arrived
yet. |
|
|
|
|