AFRICAN NON-BREEDING AREAS OF FENNOSCANDIAN OSPREYS PANDION HALIAETUS: A RING RECOVERY ANALYSIS

Abstract

SUMMARY Saurola, P. 1994. African non-breeding areas of Fennoscandian Ospreys Pandion haliaetus: a ring recovery analysis. Ostrich 65:127-136. More than 36 000 Ospreys have been ringed in Fennoscandia up to 1992 and 638 of these have been reported from 30 different African countries. The recoveries suggest that adult and first-year Ospreys arrive in Northern Africa from earl September and cross the Sahara in late September to October. A record bird migrated 9817 km from Finland to South Africa in less than 40 days, at an average speed of more than 245 km/day. The majority of all age classes of Fennoscandian Ospreys spend December to February in equatorial Africa. The average compass heading from the different parts of the Fennoscandian breeding areas to the sub-Saharan non-breeding areas is roughly the same, ca. 206°. The longitude of the non-breeding area is dependent on the longitude of the breeding area. Western subpopulations spend their non-breeding period further to the west than more eastern subpop...