Longleng reaches northern China after winter sojourn

[caption id="attachment_251187" align="aligncenter" width="565"] A migratory-route map of Longleng. (Source: WII)[/caption] Our Correspondent Imphal, May 26 (EMN): The radio-tagged female Amur falcon, Longleng, which returned to the Indian sub-continent in the first week of May after completing her winter sojourn covering thousands of kilometres in African countries, has reached her breeding area in northern China, according to a scientist from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). Scientist R Suresh Kumar, who is currently monitoring the route of the migratory bird, when contacted said that the migratory bird arrived precisely to the same location in her breeding site in the wee hours of May 25 (Saturday). Kumar said a crude measure of the distance she has flown from her breeding grounds in northern China to her wintering grounds in South Africa after passing her various roosting sites in the Indian sub-continent since tagging is about 120,000 km. Longleng, a female Amur falcon (Falcon amurensis) named after Nagaland’s district, was radio-tagged in October 2016 in Nagaland by WII scientists as part of a joint conservation effort of the local communities and Forest authority besides studying the flight route of these long-distance migratory birds and other environmental patterns along the route. The bird arrived in India after her non-stop four-day return passage from Somalia (on April 29) flying at a speed of 45 km per hour from her winter sojourn in South Africa and left northeast India on May 6 for Myanmar on way to her breeding grounds, he said. “This is the third time Longleng has reached her breeding grounds since tagging and it is approximately 2 years and seven months (937 days) of our continuous tracking,” says the WII scientist. “Now she will be at her steppe habitat for the next four months.” In the previous two years of tracking Longleng arrived at her breeding site (in northern China) on May 30 in 2017 and May 20 in 2018, he added. Two more falcons—Tamenglong (female) and Manipur (male)—were also tagged in Tamenglong district in Manipur on November 4, 2018. Unfortunately, Manipur was found dead four days later while Tamenglong has lost contact after reaching Zambia in east Africa. Appreciating the continuous efforts of the local communities and Forest department officials, both in Manipur and Nagaland, for their “conservation planning of this amazing migratory bird”, the WII scientist also expressed his desire to extend necessary support to the initiative. The Amur falcon breeds in southeastern Siberia and northern China before migrating in large flocks to southern Africa. On the way, they stop in the northeastern states of India for food.