Monday, September 20, 2010

Interesting Band Recovery

Juvenile flies north instead of south

Today I received notification that a young osprey I banded on June 30th in Little Egg Harbor was found dead on August 25th 5 miles NW of Chenango Forks, NY. The banding recovery data indicated that the bird was found in a homeowners property by her dog. This is not entirely uncommon for juveniles to fly north then turn around and fly south to their wintering areas. In 2009, an osprey named "Hix" that was tagged and fitted with a satelite transmitter traveled north from southern Mass. to Maine after fledging. Unfortunately, he did not survive either.

 

2 comments:

Greg Molyneux said...

Ben, is there any indication or explanation as to why Ospreys travel so far north and west of the ocean prior to their southward migration?

*I'm digging the new site layout, by the way.

Anonymous said...

For the most part this only seems to happen to juveniles. Eventually they do turn south at some point. I guess they could stray north when winds prevail from the south.