AWSG Whimbrel tagging; Congratulation to KS, its young has/have hatched!

This is the 6th week since KS arrived at its breeding area and some movement away from its nesting area has been observed in the past few weeks.

In the previous “Updates” we’ve seen KS settled down at its nesting location since the 2nd week. Whimbrel incubation period takes about 4 weeks with both parents sharing the duty.

Fig 1. Movement of KS around nesting location:

Week 2: 6-Jun to 12-Jun 

Week 3: 13-Jun to 19-Jun

Starting from the 4th week, KS began to move between its nesting location and another location about 12km south-west. On the 5th week, it even left the nesting location for a week and forage in an area with small lakes about 40km north-east, which is an obvious indication that its young have hatched. 

Week 4: 20-Jun to 26-Jun 

 Week 5: 27-Jun to 3-Jul 

Week 6: 4-Jul to 9-Jul

In the 6th week, KS has come back to the nesting area with occasional movement to the south-west area where it visited in the 4th week. It will take another month for KS’s young to fledge and it is expected that KS and its partner will stay around to take care of their offspring.

On the other hand, based on KU’s movement, it looks like that it is still incubating its eggs. Let’s hope we can observe similar movement of KU away from the nesting location in the coming weeks.

Fig 2. Movement of KU around nesting location:

Week 3: 21-Jun to 27-Jun 

Week 4: 28-Jun to 4-Jul

Meanwhile, we still receive regular signals from both LA (at Eighty Mile Beach) and JX (at Palawan, the Philippines).

As of 9 July 2017:

Migration tracks of our Whimbrels:

Migration summary on our Whimbrels

Leg Flag (track colour)	No. of days since deployment	No. of days since migration started	Distance travelled
LA (blue)	147 days	0 days	0km
KS (purple)	135 days	84 days	10,412km
KU (yellow)	135 days	83 days	9,904km
JX (pink)	106 days	80 days	3,049km

Katherine Leung

9 July 2017