Chapter Four: Summer 2020-2021
As the new season approached, we had discussions with Lotek about what might have gone wrong with our tags. We knew we had been a bit lucky to get such good results from the three in the first season. But for five out of the six to send no reports once they migrated, and the sixth to report only spasmodically, was disappointing, though we did know from Wally’s extensive tagging work that for some reason PGPs can be difficult to track. Lotek were equally puzzled and supplied us with five new tags for this season. In addition, we still have one of the original 10.
The plan is to deploy three tags in the December, probably through cannon-netting. The tags will be programmed to focus particularly on the northward migration. Then we’ll seek to put the other three tags on birds in February-March probably using mist-netting. Because they are being deployed quite close to departure, and the batteries should be fully charged, we will programme them to focus on the southward migration and hope the power supply lasts. Meanwhile we are monitoring the PGPs as they arrive to see what their pattern of behaviour is. At the time of writing there are about 60 of them and they seem to be dividing their time between the Findlay Reserve and the Piako Roost.
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