Day and Palmetto set forth

Palmetto also has made the big move to Central America. She had been in her pre-migratory location along the Altamaha River on the coastal plain of Georgia for 19 days before starting south along the river on 29 July. After one more night on the Altamaha, she made a run for central Florida, flying 210 miles to spend the night in the northern Green Swamp in Sumter County. Her last night in Florida, 31 July, was in the Babcock Ranch Preserve in Charlotte County. Continuing her speedy way south, she left Cape Sable at the extreme southern tip of peninsular Florida around 6 pm and arrived on Cuba, 30 miles west of Havana, in the middle of the night. She took the predictable westerly route through Cuba the next day, and made her way across the Gulf of Mexico to arrive in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, on 3 August before the sun rose. She is now in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Preserve, which often serves as a stopover location for our southbound Swallow-tailed Kites. We’ll see how long she stays here.

Because of Day’s long over-water flight, she is now within 470 miles of MIA. He slowed a bit in Honduras and Nicaragua, hugging the Caribbean coast, and is now in eastern Panama.

Bluff continues to forage and roost along the Savannah River near Allendale, SC. (Local Swallow-tailed Kite enthusiasts, including the dedicated conservationists of the Lower Savannah River Alliance and their supporters, recently spotted a bird with a transmitter, most likely Bluff, within a flock of kites foraging on insects over a farm field), Gulf Hammock is on the Ocmulgee River in Georgia, her habitual pre-migration conditioning site many miles north of her Florida nesting territory. Pace is still along Doctor’s Lake in southern Jacksonville, and PearlMS remains near the Pearl River in Mississippi.