Nagaland: A female Amur falcon from Nagaland has flown from Somalia non-stop for four days at a speed of 45 km per hour to be at her breed ground in northern China says an official of the Wildlife Institute of India, WII. This flight data of the Amur falcon is accessible from the radio tagging done in October 2016 by the Institute in Nagaland as part of the project to study the flight route of these long-distance migratory birds and environmental patterns along the route.

“A crude measure of the distance flown by the falcon from her wintering grounds in South Africa to reach her breeding grounds in Northern China after passing various roosting sites in Indian sub-continent, including Nagaland is about 120,000 km since tagging,” said a WII scientist, R Suresh Kumar who is monitoring the route of the migratory bird.

This is the third time, the radio-tagged female Amur falcon, named Longleng, after a district  of Nagaland by the same name, has reached China since tagging, approximately two years and seven months of continuous tracking,” said the scientist who has tagged more than 10 birds in the last 5 years. According the wildlife scientist Longleng will be at her steppe habitat for the next four months.

Unlike Longleng, out of the two falcons -Tamenglong (female) and Manipur (male), who were also tagged in Tamenglong district in Manipur on November 4, 2018,  Manipur was found dead four days after tagging while Tamenglong is traceable  after reaching Zambia, said the wildlife Institute.

According to their flight data now available via the radio transmission the Amur falcons spend their summers at their breeding grounds in northern China and then migrate to their wintering grounds in South Africa.

En route, they halt in north-eastern states  of India and leave the region in November after having enough food for their non-stop flight to Africa.