Headed North!
May 17, 2023
Over the past 42 days, we’ve been tracking two Blue-winged Teal, banded 20 miles west of Mexico City. For the initial 36 days, “Fat Daddy,” one of the Teal, demonstrated a localized movement pattern, traveling a total of 54 miles. For a detailed analysis of this early movement, please refer to our previous blog post titled, “Tracking the Movement of Two Blue-Winged Teal in April 2023”. (Picture below for reference)
On April 11th Fat Daddy began his migration north. Leaving from Toluca, Mexico at 10:54PM local time and flying non-stop for the next 11 hours he migrated 575 miles. Over the next three days he continued his migration departing every evening between 10-11PM. Over three subsequent days he flew another 351 miles. Currently Fat Daddy is utilizing a cattle ranch in Christoval Texas as a stopover location.
With the help of Ebird Manuel and I were able to get in touch with a local birder, Dorothy Tate, who traveled to the ranch to help us determine what the waterfowl was feeding on, as well as take a few pictures. Dorthy reports the fields are primarily Bermuda grass, they might have some other soft vegetation in the low spots. Dorthy also reports that there is a low area that due to heavy recent rain is holding 10” of water.
Our beloved Fat Daddy is utilizing this flooded area as a stopover point before, continuing
north.
Lowland Drainage Area
Satellite View of Ranch
We have included some statistical information for you to enjoy from Fat Daddy’s tracking thus far.
Utilizing the information provided by our GPS backpack units we have monitored and analyzed the daytime movement trends of the waterfowl. As illustrated in the charts below the waterfowl almost exclusively moves in the Morning and at night. It will be interesting to follow these movement trends across the rest of his migration as well as compare it to other seasons and species as we acquire more data.
