Abbo in South America

   As the only bird of four to continue transmitting (we are hoping at least America or Hawkeye's transmitters will pop back on during spring migration), Abbo's journey during the wintering period has been quite interesting to watch. Some of you may remember from the earlier Facebook/ Blog posts that Abbo arrived in South America around October 23rd when she crossed over from Panama into Colombia. Once in Colombia she flew down the center of Colombia, through Peru and then into Brazil during the first week of November. 

   Around November 13th she made her way into the Mapinguari National Park and stayed close to the Madeira River. The Madeira River flows through about a quarter of the Brazilian Amazon and is one of the Amazon's largest (approximately 3,250 kilometers or 2,020 miles long) and most important tributaries (http://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/madeira-river). 

   Abbo continued moving east until November 22nd when she decided to follow a river south and then looped back north in the first two weeks of December. The signal of Abbo's transmitter went in and out a few times in December but by the 1st of January she had crossed into the State of Amazonas, right outside of Juruena National Park. The Juruena National Park is Brazil's third largest national park, spanning over 1.9 million-hectares (4.7 million-acres)!!! Not only is this national park providing wintering habitat for our Abbo but it is also providing habitat and protecting other species like the endangered jaguar, giant otter and harpy eagle! How cool!
{{ (http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/amazon/vision_amazon/models/amazon_expeditions/juruena_national_park/factsheets/) }}

   Interestingly, Abbo continued northwest on January 7th  and around the 11th found herself passing through Nascentes do Lago Jari National Park and continued moving west on January 19th.  Just a few days later, Abbo continued north almost retracing her southbound journey and as of February 7th, she moved north towards the border of northeastern Peru.

   The data we have received from the last 4 months of Abbo's journey include her route and the direction of her movements as well as the possible importance national parks and protected habitat play during the wintering period. We are very excited to increase our sample size of tagged adult Broadwings and hope that we can provide more concrete data on the locations and routes used by Broadwings when they enter South America.  

We are still seeking sponsors or donors to our 2015 field work where we hope to tag up to eight more Broadwings.  Information on making donations is on the Broadwing page of Hawk Mountain website, www.hawkmountain.org.  Thank you for your continued interest in our Broadwing adventures!