Update on the West Winnipeg girls & McDermot ... as of December 19th.
The West Winnipeg girls decided not to migrate far (relatively speaking) this year. Lilith and Juliet were in Arkansas and Iowa/Illinois back at the end of October and that is as far as they got. McDermot had made it to Little Rock, Arkansas before both the girls and was still in the area in October. I've included some distances here - they are all very very approximate since I don't know exactly where the birds are, I am just using a general area, I could be out by a couple of hundred kms in any direction. The distances are just to give you a general idea of how far, or not far in this year's case, our birds have gone this winter!
Lilith however died on November 19th near the wetland where she had been overwintering. Looks like natural causes according to the local wildlife officials who went to track her down. The wetland is isolated and behind a bunch of locked gates so a collision with another bird perhaps or with a tree near the wetland (she was found near the base of a cottonwood). Unlikely it was due to starvation, she was parked at a wetland with prey available, so like the rest of our 2012 deaths, a natural (non-human-related) death. Too bad, she was a neat bird, lots 'o spunk!
Juliet is fine however, still near Iowa/Ilinois border and it will be interested to watch her northward progression - I don't know her exact location but she's approximately 1000km away from Winnipeg (Lilith was about 700km further south when she died). It will be interesting to see when she starts north (if she goes north of course) and where she ends up - a 2011 peregrine with a transmitter spend the summer in the Minot area with a couple of day trips around and about. Who knows where Juliet may decide to hang out ...
McDermot's transmitter has been providing data, not sure how regularly but we do know that after making it to Little Rock in October, he decided to backtrack and he is currently hanging out in the Memphis, Tennessee area. That puts him about 600km south of Juliet and about 300km from where Lilith died. He looks to be doing well though.
The other hacked birds with transmitters are all further south - Texas, Louisiana and Mexico. Looks like the wild-hatched chicks were rebels this year, which may be a good thing or not, we will just have to wait and see!
