The Amazing Journey

In addition to the eyewitness reports we’ve received confirming Sociable Lapwing migration is now well underway; Abaj, Dina and Dana, three of the four birds we are satellite-tracking this autumn, have also begun their post-breeding migrations.

Following a number of ambiguous signals over the past few weeks, we have just received confirmation that Dinara has made it back to southern Kazakhstan.

After spending the winter in western India (near the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat) Dinara has set off on a long journey north back towards her breeding grounds and is now already in Tajikistan about 50 km north-east of Khorog.

A new transmission just received from Dinara now locates her close to the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

One of our tagged Sociable Lapwings has been tracked all the way from the breeding grounds in Kazakhstan to wintering grounds around the Great Rann of Kutch. Dinara, an adult female Sociable Lapwing tagged in May 2010 at Birlik in central Kazakhstan, was tracked spending at least ten days in the Indus valley in Pakistan [...]

After an absence of transmissions from our satellite tagged birds for several weeks, a new transmission just received from Dinara is very welcome news and marks another important milestone in our growing understanding of the complexity of Sociable Lapwing migration.

Two transmissions recorded on November 13th confirm Dinara has now arrived in central Pakistan, in the Indus floodplain not far from Shujaabad.

After more than a month without word, Dinara sprung a double surprise today when we received not only a new transmission with details of her current location but also confirmation that she is in southern Uzbekistan!

As of September 1st Dinara is still very close to her breeding site in central Kazakhstan and has not yet started her migration. Her transmitter is sending regular signals but all of these are from locations close to where she has been all summer.

Despite expectations that Dinara would have embarked on her migration by now, a signal logged at 15:30 on August 24th confirmed she is still currently close to her breeding grounds a few kilometers East of Lake Tengiz in Central Kazakhstan.

Dinara was initially tagged in central Kazakhstan in early June 2010 and after raising her chicks she has remained close to her nesting site with other Sociable Lapwings in her breeding colony. As of August 6th 2010 Dinara had still not set off on her Autumn migration but was transmitting a strong signal. Any day [...]