by Chris Martin
We continue to track the movements of Black A/U, a satellite transmittered 19-mo old male bald eagle raised in a nest on New Durham’s Merrymeeting Marsh in 2010. Wearing a backpack-mounted transmitter unit known as PTT 79607, he is the only survivor of three Merrimack River watershed nestling eagles fitted with transmitters in June 2010 as part of the Merrimack River Bald Eagle Habitat Study. For much of the summer of 2011, he hung out on a quiet stretch of the upper Merrimack River located just below Franklin. By the end of August, he had moved to Harrisville in southwest New Hampshire, but returned again to the Merrimack River near Concord by the first week of September.
Most recently, he has been spending time in the southwest part of the state. He was on the Connecticut River in Hinsdale, below the Vernon Dam, on 9/26/2011. In October (see map), he was at Spoonwood Pond in Nelson on 10/6, near Derry Hill in Acworth (headwaters of the Cold River) on 10/16, and on the North Branch of the Contoocook River in Stoddard and Antrim on 10/26. Click on the map to enlarge and see more detail. Now operating in “battery conservation” mode, Black A/U’s transmitter is currently sending us location data every tenth day in a multi-hour active contact period. If he survives and his battery’s charge holds out, this reporting pattern should continue until next April.
Two other young eagles that were originally part of this study (siblings from a nest located on Lake Winnipesaukee) have been confirmed dead. First, Black A/R (PTT 79604) was killed, when she was only a 7-mo old, in a collision with a vehicle in southeastern New York in November 2010. Then her sister, Black A/S (PTT 79606), died from a respiratory infection in Fairlee, Vermont when she was a 16-mo old in early August 2011.
This project is made possible through a grant from the Merrimack River Bald Eagle Fund administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. NH Audubon’s Conservation Department is conducting this work under supervision of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the N.H. Fish & Game Department.
