Abstract
New technologies enable tracking of the route, duration, and destination of previously unassessed long-distance movements. Fledgling Australasian Gannets Morus serrator from breeding populations in New Zealand had been reported to fly across the Tasman Sea to Australia, with this historic knowledge derived from the recovery of banded carcasses and from observations of initial flight direction. We deployed Argos satellite devices on ten M. serrator fledglings at Cape Kidnappers Gannetry, North Island, New Zealand, across 2 years. Birds that were tracked leaving the colony initially appeared to have landed on the sea. A male bird and two female birds were tracked moving along the east coast to the south tip of New Zealand. The two females then crossed the Tasman Sea to eastern Australian coastal waters in 4 and 5 days, respectively. We suggest that, contrary to historic reports, the route via Stewart Island constitutes a realized migration path for fledglings from Cape Kidnappers, which might minimize the distance traveled across the open sea to southeastern Australia or Tasmania. Our results further imply that initial direction of flight needs not be indicative of the subsequent migration route taken by M. serrator. This highlights the importance of direct tracking technology for adequate assessment of dispersal and migration in seabirds and other highly mobile species.
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Acknowledgments
This study received funding from Education New Zealand to S.M.H.I., and from the University of Auckland to M.E.H. The project was subvented by SIRTRACK in the frame of work at the Cape Kidnappers and Ocean Beach Preserve, and was carried out under government and institutional research permits. Our thanks go to the Napier DoC Office for their kind permission to use their field facility and to Cape Kidnappers landowners and farm managers for friendly admission to their property. We would like to acknowledge N.L. Chong, D. Dearborn, A. Gager, I. Richling, W. Boeckeler, and G. Machovsky-Capuska for help in the field, and G. Ballard, T. Landers, J. Mackay, B. Igic, R. Mullers, M. Rayner. and anonymous reviewers for helpful discussions.
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Communicated by P. H. Becker.
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Ismar, S.M.H., Hunter, C., Lay, K. et al. A virgin flight across the Tasman Sea? Satellite tracking of post-fledging movement in the Australasian Gannet Morus serrator . J Ornithol 151, 755–759 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-010-0504-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-010-0504-1