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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richard Prior" data-source="post: 3565109" data-attributes="member: 66621">Well well, there's a surprise, Potku lives still! I had been checking the Finnish website from time to time since last autumn and assumed the worst for this remarkable traveller. However, on checking just now I find the following information which updates the situation:“Potku’s tag fell silent on her autumn migration on September 23 2016 as she had just crossed over to Africa and was getting ready to fly over the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. The situation was worrying compared to last year. In autumn 2015 the tag connected with a mobile network nearly daily and downloaded the data all the way deep into Mauretania. This time the radio silence fell two weeks and more than 2 000 kilometers before.It was a long silent winter. Every now and then I checked the tag’s administration page – nothing. Until the bomb fell on April fool’s day. Potku’s tag still works, and now the bird is in Europe again!For the first week of April Potku stayed hunting within a triangle with Paris, Orleans and Le Mans at the corner points. Potku stopped at the same area also on her autumn migration in 2015. In France the tag downloaded all data from the winter. The secrets of Potku’s winter were revealed after all.In September 2016 Potku had crossed the Atlas Mountains pretty much the same way she did one year before: high and fast. This time she flew, on September 24, just a couple of kilometers east of the highest peak in the mountain chain, Toubkal. It is stunning to compare this with the autumn of 2015 when she flew one day later (September 25) a couple kilometers west of the peak, which rises nearly up to 4 200 meters.After having crossed the Atlas Mountains Potku chose a slightly more eastern route than previously. This time she spent a couple of days in Algeria (September 25 to 27). Now she did probably not get a glimpse of the Eye of Sahara as she flew some 150 kilometers east of this remarkable formation (see news from March 3 2016).Finally Potku’s wintering grounds and timing southwest of Aleg in southern Mauretania was nearly identical with that of the previous year:1.    There was only a two day difference in the arrival dates: October 6 2015 and October 4 2016.2.    Potku’s actual wintering area remained in within the exact same 20 x 20 square as the year before.3.    Both in 2015 and 2016 the pallid harrier made a similar, approximately a week long excursion towards the Senegal River at the turn of October and November.4.    Potku left her wintering area in Aleg on the very same day, January 31, both in 2016 and 2017.After her winter reticence Potku headed northwest and reached the capital of Mauretania, Nouakchott, on February 2. From there on she flew north along the coastline and finally spent a week, February 7 to 13, at the Banc d’Arquin National Park. Recently we have learned that at least a part of the dunlin (Calidris alpina schinzii) population of Potku’s breeding region, Northern Ostrobothnia, overwinter there.After Banc d’Arquin Potku made a detour east and spent February 14 to 21 in Western Sahara and February 21 to March 7 at the northwestern corner of Mauretania. Next up on her flight plan was another trip to the coast. In early March the pallid harrier arrived at the National Park of Khenifiss, right north of Morocco’s disputed border with Western Sahara. Khenifiss hosts the largest lagoon along Morocco’s Atlantic coast. To most of us a more well-known site are the Canary Islands which lie right at this latitude some 150 kilometers into to Atlantic, at closest.Potku spent only a couple of days in Khenifiss. First she continued east, but soon turned north towards Europe. Her crossing of the Gibraltar begun over Tangier just as it had done one year before – this time she reached Europe on March 28 whereas the previous year she done the same on March 29.”Looking at the site today the map shows that in the past week or so Potku has wandered off into Russia (perhaps a greater density of the species and therefore a better chance of finding a mate?)  See the map at: <a href="https://satelliitti.laji.fi/JX.844" target="_blank">https://satelliitti.laji.fi/JX.844</a></blockquote>

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