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Margaret Sloan | all galleries >> Birds of North America >> Diurnal raptors >> Osprey > Rapunzel, an Osprey with transmitter
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2013-10-02_1136 Surfside, TX

Rapunzel, an Osprey with transmitter

Pandion haliaetus

Here's a report I received on this bird: The bird was banded and tagged up in Montana at the Raptor View Research Institute http://www.raptorview.org/). Like all young Ospreys, this one did not return to its natal area after its first winter.

As of July 2014, reported by the banders: Rapunzel is now two years old, and we did not think she would migrate north this year since she was in the same place well after all the other Ospreys had headed north. However, on 11 May she pushed off, and retraced her flight back up north to Montana. She flew right over the nest she was born in, but here is where it starts to get really interesting. She did not even stop in and say hi to mom and dad! She flew north up into Alberta, and since then she has done the most amazing road trip logging over 4,000 miles in big loops. Since she got back up here, she has flown: way up into Alberta, back down through Montana, across Idaho, Washington, Oregon, back into Idaho, back across Oregon and Washington, way up into British Columbia and then back into Alberta, back down into Montana close to her natal nest (but did not go to it), then back up to Alberta. Yesterday she flew back across Montana, and right now she is near Bonner’s Ferry in northern Idaho! Whew – this is the mother of all road trips! I suspect that she is prospecting for a good place to settle down and find a nice boyfriend, but the distance involved in her wanderings is truly astounding!


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Claude Gagnon05-Oct-2013 10:56
Beautiful :))
marko gregoric04-Oct-2013 21:17
Interesting shot. V
sandra kroeger04-Oct-2013 12:40
Would be interesting to see where it is from. Were either one of you able to get the tag number and look it up?
Ann Pettigrew04-Oct-2013 11:57
Very interesting view, Margaret. Does this osprey have an antenna on? V