Grace

Grace is still cruising close to home. The tracking data shows she’s only flying across the river ~600′ from bank to bank. We’ll see her slowly expand her range as she gets more and more experience flying and begins exploring the area. Shelly Fowler was gracious enough to share these photos of Grace flying around her natal territory. Thank you Shelly!

Camellia

Camellia visited the St. Brides Correctional Center in Chesapeake, VA on July 4 and on July 5th. Maybe inspiring patriotism and other noble feelings in the prisoners? Anything is possible!

Camellia at St Brides Correctional Center 7/4 and 7/5

Camellia’s movements 6/23-7/5. Blue icon is the most recent location on 7/5.

Why we track eagles

We are often asked why we track eagles and how our data is used to conserve eagles and their habitats. CCB has several uses for the transmitter data one of which is looking at movement corridors for eagles.  This particular map is a model of Camellia’s movements. What we look for is movement paths used repeatedly over time that can represent “flight corridors”.  Camellia, Azalea, Grace, and KE are part of a larger eagle tracking study CCB continues to conduct in the region on over 70 eagles. Combining data from this large sample size allows us to look for population level flight corridors. Locating where these flight corridors are and understanding why the eagles are in a certain location can be very useful in eagle management. Various government planning and conservation agencies can use this information to avoid erecting new structures (wind turbines, electrical distribution lines, etc) that have the potential harm flying eagles.

On Camellia’s map we can see definite hot spots of movements (red color) around Lake Anna, multiple landfills, and the Norfolk/Virginia Beach region. Available prey resources (yes, landfill food counts as “prey” in this context) are a major driving force in why eagles move across the landscape as shown in Camellia’s map. I’ve noted the NBG nest only for your reference since it’s hard to see the base map.

Utilization distribution of Camellia’s movements in Virginia.

ps. I realized I hadn’t approved comments for the last post since Reese normally handles it. Sorry!