Three turtle doves have had small satellite tagging equipment fitted to them by  BirdLife Malta as part of international research.

The effort follows-up the 2017 tagging of Francesco, an Italian turtle dove from Comino’s bird sanctuary which continues transmitting to date.

The research work, led by Petra Quillfeldt at Giessen University, aims to track the migratory movements of European turtle doves across Europe and Africa.

The  5g solar-powered satellite tags were fitted as backpack on the birds – charging a battery using sunlight, and transmitting the bird’s GPS locations every other day.

The research is also being conducted in Germany, where several birds have been similarly tagged.

BirdLife Malta said the species is thought to have declined by almost half in the past 16 years in Europe.

The research will give an insight into the migration route between Europe and Africa, how the birds tackle obstacles along their route from the Sahara
Desert to the Alps and whether the birds return to the same spot to nest every year. 

"At a more local level the research is also helping us understand how
weather conditions affect migration the timing of their arrival in Malta
year after year," BirdLife said.

BirdLife said that owing to the scale of illegal hunting the birds were not satellite-tagged during their peak migration to avoid losing them.

The three tagged birds have been named Marija, Hope and Virginijus.

They were tagged in early May.

Marija, tagged on May 1, crossed to Gozo and spent the night in the northern part of the island. Her last position was registered on the morning of May 2 just before 7am, following which its satellite transmission went dead.

"Given reports of illegal hunting on Gozo received on the day, we very much fear Marija was illegally shot down on Gozo before she could continue on," BirdLife said.

Hope was tagged on May 4, flew to Comino, Gozo and then Sicily by May 6. It has stayed the eastern part of Sicily, east of the city of Agrigento and seems to be settled for the breeding season. 

Virginijus, named after the  European Commissioner for Environment, Virginijus Sinkevičius, was tagged on the following day and arrived in Sicily within a few hours.

Virginijus crossed through the middle of Sicily reaching the northern
Sicilian coast near Cefalù, then continued eastwards towards Palermo. It then flew up the Lazio coast south of Rome and on north along the Umbrian coast, reaching a forest north of Punta Ala by May 9. It has settled there.  

You can follow their movements online on this live map developed by
NABU: https://bit.ly/FollowTheTurtleDoves.

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