Monday, January 25, 2010

December-January at the fisheries

During the end December and first half of January both birds spent on Iturup Island. The island has several salmon runs and several fish hatcheries. The adult female (yellow line) spend her time in the southern part of the island, near the part known as Dobriy peresheek (Good isthmus), at the lake Dobroe and at pinnacles along the coast of Dobroye Nachalo Bay (Good beginning bay).

The immature bird was from the end of December 2009 to mid- January 2010 at the Reydovo hatchery some 7 km from Reydovo town. The hatchery has been operational since 2003 and has several small channels around it, full of fish.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

November 2009 moves

Both adult and immature eagles went south in November, both crossed the Tatar strait between the Sakhalin and mainland on 17-18 November, and by the last week of November reached the Kuril island chain. The routes of the last stretch was a bit different. The adult female went along the Sakhalin island and crossed over to Hokkaido, and then, demonstrating a steady pace of migration crossed over from Siretoko peninsula to Kunashir.
The immature bird made a spectacular crossing from the Sakhalin island to Urup Island within 2 days. One fix on 19 November 2009 was obtained 20 km in the open sea. The fix for the 20 November was timed out, but on the 21 November the bird was at a small volcanic island of the Vavilov's spur, off the Urup Island coast.The bird arrived to the Urup island proper on 28 November, and then continued south to the Iturup island. On the Iturup the bird appeared on 12 December.