News: Autumn migration has begun.
August 2010: After a prolonged period of rain the weather changed and immediately afterwards several hundreds of departing Purple Herons have been reported at bird observatories in the Netherlands during the last few days. So, Autumn migration to West Africa has started. To date no herons with transmitters have joined the departing flocks. All herons with transmitters bred successfully and should be ready to take off the coming weeks. Karen most likely died in the desert of Morocco and thus three herons of previous years are still alive and with operational transmitters: Lena, Rudi and Mustapha.
May 2010: After a gap of three months we can fortunately report the successful spring migration of Karen, Mustapha, Lena and Rudi. Mustapha and Lena have already returned to the breeding colonies in the Netherlands. This is especially exciting for Lena, who is the first juvenile Purple Heron ever to be followed from fledging into breeding. Lena spend two northern summers in Africa before returning this year for the first time; this was longer than expected. Rudi made a long stop in the Parque Nacional de Doñana in southern Spain on his way back to the Netherlands and, as far as we know, is still not back in the colony. Karen passed the desert successfully but flew out into the open ocean and after a 1000 km detour ended up in the Canary Islands. After recovering there for over two weeks has now headed onto Morocco. Whether Karen will be back in time to breed is unclear, but this seems unlikely as the first Purple Herons have already hatched in the Dutch colonies.
January 2010: There have been no further movements detected of Karen or Mustapha during the end of December or the first week of January 2010. Karen was last known to be near Conakry and Mustapha near Baoma. There have been no further fixes from Rudi, this was a similar situation to that of the 2008/2009 'winter', when no signals were received between the end of December and March. We hope that we will receive a signal in the coming months so that we can identify his location.
December 2009: Both Karen and Mustapha remain settled in their respective 'wintering' areas throughout the month. For the third 'winter' running Karen has chosen to stay near to Conakry in Guinea. Meanwhile, Mustapha is back near Baoma in Sierra Leone for the second consecutive 'winter'. In November Rudi was known to be along the Senegal River, close to where he was last winter. Unfortunately, we received no signals from him throughout December, this was a similar situation to last year. There were no further fixes from Lena in December.
November 2009: Heron Karen returned to her traditional northern wintering site in Guinea and remained there throughout November. This rice field area close to Conakry, is the same site she used the previous two northern winters. Mustapha remained in the wetlands close to Baoma in Sierra Leone for the entire month. Rudi has made a short move along the Senegal River back to the same area where he spent last northern winter. This is part of the Senegal River close to Dagana where Rudi was known to be between early October and the end of December before we lost contact with him until his northward migration in March. We hope that this year we will be able to follow him throughout the northern winter period in Africa. So far we know that he remains here into the fouth week of November.
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Further information about the specific habitats used by Purple Herons can be gathered through photographs. We have received the following photograph from Ger van Creij of a Purple Heron in Takoradi in Ghana in October 2007, showing the type of habitat that the herons are using.
Adult Purple Heron at Takoradi (Ghana) on 15 October 2007 (Ger van Creij)