Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Sheba continuing southeast

Sheba has continued to migrate southeast and has now reached central Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 30 November and 2 December the bird travelled 850 km.

Sinbad is still in the highlands of Ethiopia. I wonder when it will continue migrating towards Madagascar....

3 comments:

  1. Hi,

    This is really interesting, however we've seen that their close relatives behave somehow similar, using highly individual migration routes. I've checked my database and there are some records of the species in both states where they stayed longer: two spring records in Chad, four autumn records in Ethiopia, however none in CAR and neither from Congo!

    I'm really curious how they continue? Will they reach Madagascar? Based on the records I collated, a number of birds spend the winter in Botswana, Namibia, Mocambique and South Africa. Unfortunately most records do not mention the age...

    Attila

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  2. Hi Attila!

    thanks for your comment, your records are quite interesting! Are these personal observations you made or is this an officially accessible database? I have some records from Cameroon but none for Ethiopia and would be interested in getting some information on these observations.
    You mention the highly individual migration routes of eleonora's (obviously you've read my paper :-) , It is indeed the case that these two juvenile Sooties display the same stop over and Zugknick as their relatives (and only the juveniles) do. This fact might mirror the close relationship between the species and the evolution of their routes. Looking forward to reading more from you, cheers, Marion

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  3. Hi Marion,

    The records are mostly from published ones, the database is private, but I may share the info with everyone interested. I'll send you the records in a mail. I'm collecting any information on records of the species, thus your observations are more than welcomed.
    Is there any possibility to post some coordinates of the area the birds were staying long? I would be really interested to see the habitat types on Google Earth...

    Attila

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