Even cooler and more on-topic is that Island Girl, a tundra peregrine with a transmitter, is currently sitting at the southern end of Whitewater Lake having bopped around the Turtle Mountains area for the last day. At this point, she's flown 11,632km since she left Chile on April 15th. And she has a ways to go - she should be heading north/northeast soon to head back to her nesting territory on Baffin Island soon.
Last year she was in the same area at this time of the year. Last year, she spent the night of May 25/26 on the banks of the Souris River by Gregory's Mill (a provincial historic site) before she head out NNW over Brandon to spend the night just SW of Minnedosa. The next day she was off again in a NNW direction over Riding Mountain 271km to the shores of Swan Lake. Next day she upped her mileage to 365km for the day, from Swan Lake north to Highrock Lake west of Thompson. The next few days were short hops NNE to Sand Caribou River Park Reserve on the Manitoba/Nunavut border where she spent a couple more days within about a 1km square area just below the treeline (I checked the lat/long). At this point, she has travelled for 50 days and has covered 13,254km. Then on June 1st, she alters course and heads north east with purpose - from 1500h to 2300h, she crosses into Nunavut and covers 202km. Next day she's off along the coast then she's over water - 293km by 0700h, another 672km by 1500h and another 132 by 2200h and another 34.9km by 0600h on June 3rd close to 1000km in a bit over 24 hours. But there was a reason, she's within site of her goal - by the end of the day, she's come ashore on/over Baffin Island. From June 4th to the 9th she criss-crosses the southern half of the island and looking at the points, it almost looks like she's checking out nestsites along the shoreline(s), I don't know the terrain, but that's certainly how it looked and when I did look at some topo maps, she did seem to be popping from coastal cliff/peaks to cliff/peaks. Finally on June 10th, she heads off to her nestsite - or at least where she spends her summers. It's on the side of a lake amid a huge complex of interconnected waterbodies. Her summer "home" is on high ground with low, I'd say tidal and salt-water marshes on one side and a lake on the other with higher ground surrounding the lake and other waterbodies.
She was in the same location in 2010 and 2009 though in 2009 she was based on a different high spot just to the east, but on the same lake. In 2009 she was back on her territory by June 18th (she did alot of wandering on the west side of Baffin that year) and on June 2nd in 2010. In 2010, she went north through eastern Saskatchewan, across the NW corner of Manitoba then north of Chesterfield Inlet before going due west across to Southampton Island to Baffin Island. Bird with a mission that year, no wandering about. Will be interesting to see what this year will bring for Island Girl - but expect her to get home between June 2nd and 18th. It will be a quick turn-around for her chicks (if she's breeding) - she leaves Baffin Island pretty regularly - September 20 in 2009 and 2011, September 21 in 2010. That's 95-110 days - 14 days for egg production, 5 days to lay, 30 days incubation, 45 days until all the chicks fledge = 99 days - doesn't leave much time for anything except raising a family before its time to head south - definitely a case of having to "learn on the job" for the chicks!! No idea how much "help" they get from their parents or if they have to rely much more on their hardwiring than our (spoiled
) southern chicks.
* a day is from 0700h to 2300h
