We hope you all are enjoying these migration updates! We sure think it's fascinating stuff. Here's the latest whereabouts of the birds.
Palmetto (Female) - Tagged in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina.
Still roosting along the Altamaha River in Georgia and congregating with other kites. She was photographed by Todd Schneider on July 29th with 50 other Swallow-tailed Kites and Mississippi Kites.
Pace (Male) - Tagged south of Jacksonville, Florida.
Pace has started his southbound trek. He left his pre-migration area and spent the night in the Green Swamp of Florida east of Dade City and Zephyrhills, Florida.
Gulf Hammock (Female) - Tagged in Levy County, Florida.
Unlike the other kites we are tracking, Gulf Hammock flew north to stage for migration. She traveled from Florida to Georgia and is still on the Ocmulgee River south of Abbeville, Georgia. This is the third year in a row she is using this pre-migration area.
Suwannee (Female) - Tagged at the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge.
Still in the Parque Nacional de Quintana Roo, Mèxico, where she has been for almost a week. This is classic stopover behavior similar to what Gina Kent found with her thesis work at Georgia Southern on the studies of the annual cycle of the Swallow-tailed Kite.
Day (Female) - Tagged in Daytona, Florida.
Day has left Florida to begin the first leg of her migration to South America. She spent the last night in the U.S. roosting in the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed in Collier County, Florida. When her radio turned off last, she was over the Straights of Florida south of Marathon Key. (These state-of-the-art GPS satellite transmitters have a solar-powered battery and are designed to turn off periodically to recharge.)
MIA (Male) - Tagged in south Miami, Florida.
After moving quickly through Belize, Guatemala and Honduras, MIA has slowed down and is staying put in Nicaragua.
