Hi folks,
Just for fun, here is an interesting flight - https://motus.org/data/track?tagDeploymentId=36320
On the last leg of this journey the bird was detected in Tennessee on the night of October 16 - Oct 16 2021 20:36:38 GMT-0400, and was detected in Florida Oct 17 2021 03:41:47 GMT-0400. That rough distance of about 700km took the bird about 7 hours, roughly 92 km/h to be exact with a tail wind of 60 km/h tailwinds at 850 hpa. Winds that night - https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/10/17/0100Z/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-78.43,39.97,1099/loc=-69.406,4.493
This is in line with other direct flights of thrushes observed from throughout the network including some of our previous direct Colombia to Gulf of Mexico spring migration flights. There are plenty of gems like this in our database just waiting to be plucked.
A recent papers from this project was recently published.
Morales, Ana, Barbara Frei, Greg W Mitchell, Camille Bégin-Marchand, and Kyle H Elliott. “Reduced Diurnal Activity and Increased Stopover Duration by Molting Swainson’s Thrushes.” Ornithology, January 5, 2022, ukab083. https://doi.org/10.1093/ornithology/ukab083.
See also:
Bégin-Marchand, Camille, André Desrochers, Philip D. Taylor, Junior A. Tremblay, Lucas Berrigan, Barbara Frei, Ana Morales, and Greg W. Mitchell. “Spatial Structure in Migration Routes Maintained despite Regional Convergence among Eastern Populations of Swainson’s Thrushes.” Movement Ecology 9, no. 1 (May 13, 2021): 23. Spatial structure in migration routes maintained despite regional convergence among eastern populations of Swainson’s Thrushes | Movement Ecology | Full Text.
Twitter thread here https://twitter.com/anacrismorales9/status/1485839632193437697?s=21&t=V9i7MnRf46acAUqvqQegFw
Thanks Lucas Berrigan, for some of the sleuthing.
Happy Motus’ing
Stu
