Project OspreyTrack: Gundersen Map

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March 3, 2016
We lost contact with Gundersen on January 12. He had been worrying me by moving around a lot (always more chance of getting into trouble). He returned from a road trip on the 6th and seemed to be just fine. His last point was perfectly normal, but sometime between January 12 and 15, he either died (and destroyed the transmitter) or the transmitter failed. He was close to a major 4-lane highway, so maybe he made a mistake where the highway crosses the river. We likely will never know. I will of course check his nest in early April just in case he returns with a dud transmitter.

November 25, 2015
Gundersen made a small move to a new location. On November 21 he moved 14 miles east to a river near the town of Tupucido. I suspect the river’s name is also Tupucido. He had checked this river out on a day trip on October 19, but has now settled there for the last four days. Looks like a nice, although he is close to people.

October 28, 2015
Gundersen has settled into his winter home. I won’t update maps and his blog unless something noteworthy happens. You can still check in on him via the interactive maps and the phone app. Have a safe winter Gundersen?

October 17, 2016
Gundersen is really settling in on the Masparro Reservoir as well as Rio Bocono and the Rio Masparro in Barinas, Venezuela.

October 13, 2015
It looks like Gundersen IS home. He has settled down now for ten days on a nice (a reservoir I think) called Embalse Masparro in Venezuela. He looks very settled. He spends a lot of time in a bay sitting on dead flooded trees – I can just imagine him sitting there.

October 5, 2015
Gundersen is in Venezuela. He made an easy crossing of the Caribbean Sea starting October 1. He arrived in the island municipality of Bonaire the next morning, then flew to Curacau and then over to Venezuela. He’s now well on his way south and has skirted the north edge of the Andes. He ended October 4 on a nice river just east of the city of Barrancas.

October 2, 2015
After spending more than a week hanging out in Cuba, Gundersen renewed his migration on September 28 and quickly headed over to Haiti. He ended October 1 headed across the Caribbean Sea – headed for Venezuela.

September 29, 2015
Gundersen is still hanging out on that lake near Quang Tri in the Camaguey region of Cuba. He’s now been there for six days. Is this his winter home? . . . or is he just taking an extended rest before continuing on to S. America?

September 25, 2015
Gundersen is still in Cuba. He was chugging along until the late afternoon on the 21st, then doubled back several miles to end the day near a small lake. Interestingly Staddler did the same thing at about the same time and I suspect there was some weather that made them decide to backtrack a bit. Gundersen retreated a little further and settled on a lovely looking lake near Camaguey. He has been there for two days.

September 22, 2015
Gundersen made an uneventful crossing to Cuba. He was roosting on an island on the north coast of Cuba at 1am on the 20th . By 9am he was on the move and over the next two days made good progress through Cuba. He ended the 21st close to a lake near Belen.

September 21, 2015
Gundersen followed the standard “adult” route down the eastern seaboard and arrived in Florida on September 15. He quickly headed south through the interior of Florida and arrived in the Everglades on 18th. He took a day off for most of the 19th and apparently didn’t move for almost the entire day (he’s done this a couple times now), then pushed on on the 19th and caught up with NH youngster Juliet. His last accurate GPS point at 11am on Saturday showed that he was  headed south again and a 2:30pm non-GPS (Doppler) point suggested that he was over the water headed for Cuba.

September 10, 2015
Gundersen is making good progress on the typical “inland” route that we have seen from all the NH adult males. He ended the day of the 9th near Reading, PA having travelled about 345 miles in his first three days of migration. He knows where he is going . . . but we don’t.

September 9, 2015
After a very uneventful summer around his nest at the Ayers Island Dam in New Hampton, Gundersen began his fall migration on Monday. He began between 11am and noon and ended his first day near Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts. He came right by the Pack Monadnock Raptor Migration Observatory near Peterborough between 1pm and 2pm. OspreyTrack project leader Iain MacLeod was AT the Observatory as official counter for the day, but did NOT see Gundersen!! He only saw one Osprey pass the site that day . . . and it was between 2pm and 3pm . . . and did not have a backpack.

August 25, 2015
Gundersen has been very predictable all summer. He has stayed very close to his nest. In recent weeks his favorite fishing spot has been along the Smith River in Alexandria.

July 8, 2015
Nothing much to report. He’s staying close to the nest. I hope he’s taking advantage of all this free time to do some nest building, so that they have a better nest to work with next year. I’m delighted to report that our three new bird (including Gundersen) have now been added to the Animal Tracker app at MoveBank, so you can now follow all our Ospreys on your phone.

June 27, 2015
Gundersen’s nest failed in early June after 4 days of horrendous rain. This pair have been “sparse” nest builders in the past couple years and on June 1, I saw the female rolling the eggs out of standing water in the very shallow nest. The next day she had abandoned her incubation. Gundersen remains in the area close to the nest and is showing us his home range. It’s interesting to use kernel mapping to show the relationship to his neighbors Art (followed in 2012 and 2013) and Donovan (map shows his range this year).

May 23, 2015
On May 19, 2015 we caught the breeding adult male at the Ayers Island Dam nest in New Hampton. A huge thanks to Dallas Wrath of Donovan Tree Experts (link) for providing the bucket truck to access the nest. Also a huge thanks to Eversource Energy for access to the site and for their financial support of the project. Two representatives of another important funder -- 3M -- were also present for the tagging. Thanks to Barry Livingstone and Jennifer Snyder for coming. The male at Ayers we christened Gundersen after long-time PSNH employee Bob Gundersen who was such a dedicated steward of the Ayers Island Ospreys. Bob retired three years ago. Gundersen and his mate are incubating three eggs.
As usual my colleague Rob Bierregaard helped with trapping and outfitting of the transmitters and Chris Martin of NH Audubon was also present and helping.