by B. Meyburg, F. Al Lamki, A Spalton, and M. McGrady
184, a Steppe Eagle that was fitted with a transmitter at Raysut, near Salalah on 15 January 2019, showed up (9 June). We had not heard from this bird since early May. This illustrates a constraint of the GPS-GSM tags in that birds can be located in holes in the GSM coverage and be unable to transmit GPS locations. During the time it was missing, 184 moved in somewhat of a compressed loop, covering about 600 km. 184 is 2 years old, so we don't really expect it to be breeding, and so its wandering doesn't really surprise us. 184 was the only eagle tracked by us that appeared to make an attempt to cross the Strait of Hormuz (Look back at our March 9 and 20 blog posts).
Currently, at least three of the tagged birds we are following seem to be in such "holes". We hope this is the case because, in due course, when they start migrating, we should hear from them and they should be able to dump the GPS locations stored onboard the tag. The alternatives are that they are dead, have dropped their tags or their tags have failed for one reason or another.
184, a Steppe Eagle that was fitted with a transmitter at Raysut, near Salalah on 15 January 2019, showed up (9 June). We had not heard from this bird since early May. This illustrates a constraint of the GPS-GSM tags in that birds can be located in holes in the GSM coverage and be unable to transmit GPS locations. During the time it was missing, 184 moved in somewhat of a compressed loop, covering about 600 km. 184 is 2 years old, so we don't really expect it to be breeding, and so its wandering doesn't really surprise us. 184 was the only eagle tracked by us that appeared to make an attempt to cross the Strait of Hormuz (Look back at our March 9 and 20 blog posts).
Currently, at least three of the tagged birds we are following seem to be in such "holes". We hope this is the case because, in due course, when they start migrating, we should hear from them and they should be able to dump the GPS locations stored onboard the tag. The alternatives are that they are dead, have dropped their tags or their tags have failed for one reason or another.
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| Movements of a 2 yr old Steppe eagle during 1 May-9 June 2019. |
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