Radio-tagged Amur falcons enroute its breeding site

Our Correspondent
Imphal, May 15 (EMN): Amid the raging second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the radio-tagged Amur falcons ‘Chuilon’ and ‘Irang’, have passed through the Indian subcontinent in the first week of May after completing their winter sojourn by covering thousands of kilometres across African countries,and have reached their breeding area in northeastern China.

Confirming this to Eastern Mirror, the divisional forest officer, Kh Hitler of Tamenglong Forest division said that the birds are now almost reaching last year’s breeding ground site in northeast China.

On October 31 and November 1, 2019, five Amur falcons were radio-tagged with satellite transmitters by the Forest department in collaboration with scientists of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Dehradun at Puching village in Manipur to study the flight route of these long distance migratory birds and environmental patterns along the route.

The five pigeon-sized migratory birds were named Chiulon, Puching and Phalong (all names of villages in Manipur), and Irang and Barak (both names of rivers of Manipur).

On the present status of the radio-tagged falcons, WII scientist Dr. Suresh Kumar, the main scientist behind the satellite radio tagging programme, stated that ‘the two falcons, Irang and Chiulon after spending their summer in southern Africa returned to Somalia last month, departed from the Somali coastline on April 20 and 23th crossing the Arabian Sea enroute India.’

Stating that Irang, having started three days earlier, was in the lead but Chiulon the male and much older bird soon caught up with Irang and flew across Myanmar without a stop in NE India and continued their journey north. He said, “Both Chiulon and Irang in the 20 days of their journey have flown 11000 km and 10000 km respectively and have now arrived in the Amur breeding region”.

Irang appears to have arrived at its breeding site while Chiulon has flown further north and will likely travel another 1000 km to its breeding site close to the Amur River or it might set off to another site. “Chiulon is ahead and near Baicheng, Irang is near Shenyang,” he said.

Amur falcons, considered the world’s longest travelling migratory birds, spend summers on their breeding grounds in northern China and migrate to South Africa during winter. Enroute their wintering grounds, these birds enter the northeastern states of India in October. They leave the region in November after having enough food for their continuous flight.