Homecoming?

It's been quite a while since we checked in with Kuyurnpa, our longest-tracked Wedge-tail that was satellite-tagged nearly FIVE years ago. My focus on the 2017 and 2018 sample of juveniles, however, doesn't mean that I haven't been watching her tracking data with eagle eyes. The pattern in her behaviour observed when we last read about her movements has not changed much during the last 12 months, with this fifth-year eagle moving between the Carnegie lakes system and the Fortescue Marsh area every few months. Just over a month ago, however, Kuyurnpa made the ~700 km journey south from Roy Hill and roosted close to the northern boundary of Matuwa. Since then, she has behaved 'like a fox patrolling the boundary of a chicken pen', making almost weekly 'incursions' onto Matuwa, sometimes roosting the night, usually in places I know (from our map of eagle nests) are away from active breeding sites.

The below map (click to enlarge) shows one such foray, where she moved from a roost ~20 km north-east of the Matuwa homestead, spending several hours over Lindsay Gordon Lagoon (just south of Kapiburror's nest), before moving off Matuwa again to roosting on the neighbouring property Wongawol.

On another occasion (last Saturday), she soared into Matuwa from the south and actually spent the night roosting in a tree under which I have walked, on the southern banks of the same lagoon. This makes July 2018 the month in which Kuyurnpa has roosted within 25 km of her natal nest more times than any other.

Tracking data showing the 14th July 2018 roost site on the southern bank of Lindsay Gordon Lagoon.

It will be so exciting to observe her movements in closer detail over the coming weeks! As we get further into the 2018 Arid Zone breeding season, I'm really interested to see whether Kuyurnpa's seemingly 'desperate' attempts (ok that's a bit too dramatic!) to enter the breeding population continue, and she ends up settling in a breeding territory close to the nest on which, half a decade ago, she came into this amazing world.