Autumn migration continues, with several birds having made their final destinations.
Western birds 3rd November 2015
All birds have left Turkey, with Ajaz over the border in Syria. Canan, Shirin, Vyan and Sanjar are in Saudi Arabia. Sanjar appears to have settled in for the season, and Shirin is heading towards the New Haifa area of Sudan where she overwintered last year. She is currently in fields on the coast. Meanwhile, Nikoo is already in Sudan and has slowed down her pace of travel – she was still in Iraq on the night of 29/30 October, and two nights later she was in NE Sudan, 1500 km to the south-west (the header photo is Nikoo at the very start of her tagged journey). We will watch with interest to see whether the newly tagged Canan and Vyan move on, or settle in Saudi Arabia.
In the east, Tesfaye is in southern Pakistan- around 200 km north of Karachi. He made the 1100 km trip from northern Afghanistan, which involved crossing the Hindu Kush, in less than 2 days – an incredible journey. Maysa is in Afghanistan.
Eastern birds 3rd November 2015
Kiryl remains the wild card and has gone missing – he was still in Azerbaijan on the 28th October, but with no signals since. Hopefully this is because he is on the move and the satellites are not able to get a fix on his tag, so we are not yet fearing the worst.
The story so far