The latest information from Zygmunt came by the end of November from Tanzania. Since then the datalogger fitted on the Spotted Eagle in August last year remained silent. Several reasons could be mentioned such as dropping the device, bird's death or the datalogger's malfunction. On March 16th however, after 4 months' break the device sent new signals.
During those 4 months the bird must have remained on territories with no GSM coverage, which, compared with other GPS fitted Spotted Eagles from that period, can be considered an impressive achievement. At the moment Zygmunt's wintering grounds remain unknown, however since all the localisation's data had been registered and the unsent coordinates are stored in the device memory, the data is being successively sent to the database as the bird stays within the GSM coverage. Therefore we hope to receive more information on Zygmunt's winter journey through the African continent in the nearest future.
At the moment Zygmunt embarked on his spring migration to Biebrza (can be followed on the GSE project's portal under Greater Spotted Eagle - Migration - Zygmunt 2012 menu). As an interesting fact can be mentioned that the latest genetic analysis performed as part of the LIFE project revealed that the bird is a Lesser Spotted Eagle, confusing the scientists themselves, as both the previous analysis as well as the plumage confirm Zygmunt's "hybrid" origins.
This story proves that within the fields of electronics as well as nature science still much remains to be discovered.