27 October 2024
This week the New York Instances described A Feathered Homicide Thriller at 10,000 Ft which I can’t resist retelling as a result of peregrines are concerned. My story can be in images none of which are from the true episode. See precise images and the total story on the hyperlink above.
In early 2023 scientists from the College of Amsterdam hooked up satellite tv for pc trackers to eight black-bellied plovers that had been wintering within the Netherlands (a.ok.a. gray plovers, Pluvialis squatarola). The purpose was to seek out out the place they breed within the Arctic. (Right here’s what one seems like in spring.)
In late Might 2023 the birds had been migrating northwest over Sweden at nearly 10,000 toes when one among them abruptly modified course 180 levels, descended to close sea degree and utterly stopped shifting. When a monitoring machine sends that sort of information, the chicken is useless.
The scientists, led by Dr. M.P. (Chiel) Growth, went to Sweden to retrieve the tracker and located it on a ledge in an outdated quarry.
650 toes away from the deserted tracker was a peregrine nest. (Likelihood is excellent that the scientists did NOT go to throughout nesting season however the whitewash left on a cliff is a transparent indication of who was there in late Might.)
The plover died throughout peregrine breeding season when there have been most likely younger peregrines within the nest so the daddy chicken went looking the place the meals was flying.
It’s not a shock that plovers fly so excessive — some species fly even greater on migration — however it’s a shock that peregrines hunt at 10,000 toes. The plover’s tracker supplied the primary documented proof.
Simply once we suppose we all know every little thing about peregrines, they shock us once more.
p.s. Please take into account that none of those images are from the precise occasion!
