Island Girl, an adult female peregrine we originally banded in Chile in
March 2008, just left her northern nesting area on Baffin Island, Canada, a
day earlier than in other years (21, 22, 20 and 25 Sept. respectively) but
still, within the same six day period each fall.

We have been tracking her online (www.frg.org) for the last five years and
many of you are familiar with her and her travels. Many of you in
Tweeterdom helped make this happen, so many thanks to those that did. Here
is the continuing result of your donations and kind generosity.

Just wanted to let everyone know ASAP that she is moving once again.

This will be the return or southbound part of her migration for 2013. With
luck, this will be the tenth time (!) she will complete this roughly 9,000
mile journey.

It is remarkable that her GPS solar powered transmitter has lasted so long.
Pretty sure this is a record for both distance and duration. We are all
delighted by this turn of events. What a stroke of luck.

Each year, she varies her southbound route a bit, two years migrating
through Florida/Cuba, two down the central flyway and then down the east
coast of Mexico.

Last fall, she flew south all the way across the Gulf of Mexico at its
widest point. At midnight one night, we tracked her moving north at 12 mph,
apparently while roosting on a ship.

Over the next 6-8 weeks, you can check in on her exact movements each and
every day by going to www.frg.org and clicking on the blue heading of *Southern
Cross Peregrine Project*. Select tracking maps (or blog), click on Island
Girl and then scroll down to her map.Pretty easy once you do it a few times.

Zoom in or out on the map to see how she did that day,where she went and
how far she traveled. We get three fixes on her position per day at 1000,
1600 and 2200.

Go to the map box in the upper right corner and select "hybrid map" to see
what habitat she chooses each night and in many cases, identify what she
sleeps on...she likes cell towers among other interesting things.

Please pass this site along to your birding friends to the south. We have
many fans in many of the Latin American countries that know and are
watching her too.

As we all say....."Go Island Girl, Go"!

Have fun,

--
Bud Anderson
Falcon Research Group
Box 248
Bow, WA 98232
(360) 757-1911
falconresearch at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20130920/5ea88711/attachment.htm