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Radio-tagged Amur falcon, named after Manipur village, reaches Kalahari in Africa
On November 8 last year, the Manipur forest department and locals released two Amur falcons — ‘Chiuluan2’ and ‘Gwangram’ — after radio-tagging them with satellite transmitters.
The satellite-tagged Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) — ‘Chiuluan2’ — named after a village in Manipur’s Tamenglong district, is now back in the Kalahari in Botswana after spending nearly 20 days in South Africa in the area not far from Johannesburg, Wildlife Institute of India (WII) scientist R Suresh Kumar, who is monitoring the bird’s migratory route, said.
The bird had reached its first stopover site in Somalia after flying non-stop and crossing the Arabian Sea in five days and 17 hours in the last part of November last year.
“I am expecting the falcon to keep moving in circles depending on availability of food etc,” said Kumar. “Potentially, rainfall further west and in the Kalahari region may be what Chiuluan2 is tracking.”
On November 8 last year, the Manipur forest department and locals released two Amur falcons — ‘Chiuluan2’ and ‘Gwangram’ — after radio-tagging them with satellite transmitters. The aim was to study the migratory routes of these birds and their environmental patterns from Tamenglong.
‘Chiuluan2’ is a male Amur falcon, while ‘Gwangram’ is a female. Chiuluan and Gwangram are two roosting villages of the Amur falcons in Tamenglong.
“Unfortunately, Gwangram, the other satellite-tagged female falcon, has not responded since December 13 last year,” Kumar added.
This radio-tagging programme for Amur falcons was first implemented in November 2018 in Tamenglong, followed by another radio-tagging program in 2019 with five birds.
“Two falcons, named ‘Tamenglong’ and ‘Manipur’, were radio-tagged that year, followed by five birds named ‘Chiuluan’, ‘Puching’, ‘Phalong’, ‘Irang’ and ‘Barak’ in 2019, to raise awareness about wildlife conservation,” officials said.
Amur falcons, the world’s longest-traveling birds, are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act. They breed in southeast Russia and northeast China during the summer and migrate to their wintering grounds in Africa.
Their yearly journey covers about 20,000km, passing through Afghanistan and East Asia. Along the way, they stop in northeast India and Somalia.
These pigeon-sized raptors, locally known as Akhuaipuina, arrive in the northeast, including Nagaland and Manipur, in October, and leave the region in November after feeding enough to sustain their non-stop flight to Africa, where they spend their winters.
