Thursday, November 11, 2010

Sheba and Sinbad further west!

Here 'our' falcons go again! Sheba is migrating further west into Chad and Sinbad has arrived in Ethiopia. Sinbad is staying in places between 1,600 and 2,100 m in altitude at the moment! According to my and the Greek study, Eleonora's falcon do stop over in this region during their spring migration (for about 7 days). Obviously this high plateau must be very rich in insects at least in spring. Has anybody been there before who can tell us what this high plateau looks like?

We are happy to receive really good quality data of both transmitters, cross your fingers that these will last for a long time!

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Fantastic blog and a start of a fantastic journey! All my efforts to collect data on Sooty occurrences gave me only two records from Chad, both spring and much NE than Sheba wandered! Indeed, we know very little about these birds... I'm really curious where she will take from that? Will she stay in Sahel or go down to the much forested South?

    Congrats,

    Attila

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  2. Hi Attila!
    Thanks for your comments! I will post new maps soon and am also very curious what will happen the coming weeks. I believe they will stay over in West and Central Africa for a while. The onset of the rains in West Africa is September/October (does anybody have precise data for this year?) and 1 month after the onset there will be the highest abundance of swarming termites, so it is very probable that they stay in this rainy part of Africa for refilling.
    Cheers,
    Marion

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