08/09/2013
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.