Steady As She Goes

Kuyurnpa is off! She has now well and truly left her nest and is making steady progress, heading south-east along the ridge-line that forms the northern border of her parents’ territory. Our satellite data has not shown her making any long flights (keeping in mind that fixes are only taken every hour), which probably indicates she is still ‘finding her wings’. Her most recent roost site (used last night) is just under 1km away from her nest. It is interesting to see that she has not returned to roost at the nest since fledging. Maybe there’s a secret food supply her parents are leading her to?

Lift Off!

This picture shows our young eagle Kuyurnpa sitting on her nest, the last time I saw her just under a week ago. I have now left the field study area and have been keeping an eye on the satellite network to monitor her progress. Two days ago, one GPS fix (at 4pm on 4^th November) showed a point about 100m from the nest, and 200m in the air, indicating she may have made her first flight. But the rest of that day was spent at the nest site, so was this a slight error in the GPS accuracy, or a very quite test-flight!? Yesterday afternoon, though, the GPS showed a clear path of waypoints to a site 160m from the nest, where our little girl roosted for the night. And today she continued, flying from one perch tree to the next and travelling a whole 370m from her nest site! By the looks of the last few fixes, she roosted right on top of the ridgeline, a more prominent viewing point than the nest itself. Here’s a quick look at the eaglet’s progress:

The moment has finally arrived – the bird has flown! More updates on Kuyu's flight path after the next GPS download in 3 days.