Satellite tracking update 20/01/2020

January 20, 2020

All our birds appear to have been very active since releasing over a week ago. All three have been using the turf farm for midnight foraging, and almost always the exact same pivot! Obviously the regular watering of the turf is providing the birds with suitable foraging grounds where other choices are limited. Bird 64, which was our second bird released has been using some different daytime roost spots to usual, just north of the sewage farm. And bird 59, which has been sighted twice now by Alistair, has been in Jerrabomberra creek pool every day. 59 has even been snapped foraging during the daylight hours! So that has been great news so far.

Unfortunately, we have lost the transmission from bird 87 already. The transmission ceased completely the middle of last week, with no indications as to the cause of the problem. Given the abruptness of the changes, it seems like the tag might have failed. This is very disappointing so early in the piece, and with so few tagged birds out there. Nicki has been out over the weekend to see if she could spot 87, but with no luck.

The latest map is below. Midnight fixes are in yellow, and midday fixes are in blue. The last fixes from 87 around the paleo channels are in orange.

From January 18 onwards, the GPS program changes to once every 3 days, so that means we won’t get any more data downloads until next week.