Male Osprey M-47346 "Harri"

Harri was captured at his nest in Utsjoki in Lapland, ringed and fitted with a battery-powered transmitter weighing 30 g (manufactured by Microwave) on 29 July 2002. Harri weighed 1480 g, had three nestlings to look after, and his mate in 2002 was Lea.

Autumn migration 2002

Harri clearly started on his southward journey on 21 September. The previous evening at 22.03, he was still near his nest, but on the morning of the 22nd at 10, he was already at Oulunjärvi, 569 km from Utsjoki. From there, he continued by Leppävirta and St Petersburg to somewhat South of Pskov (26-28 September). The readings from Harri's progress to the area of Alexandria are unfortunately very unreliable, but judging from appearances, he spent over a week by the Black Sea. In any case, Harri spent some ten days (14-25 October) on the shore in front of Alexandria, preparing to cross the Sahara.

Though the readings from 27 October are very unreliable again, they do show that Harri had flown on, following the Nile valley. It took him four days to cross Sudan (29 Oct - 2 Nov), but he stayed in the area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a week (2-9 Nov). He crossed the Equator literally over the "darkest heart of Africa" on 5 November, when Harri became the 17th Finnish Osprey who has been observed to cross the Equator. You might think that the River Congo with its huge labyrinth of tributaries would offer an Osprey the optimal wintering area, but Harri continued his journey over Zambia and Botswana to southernmost South Africa!

As the crow flies, Harri spends his winters 11,552 km from his nest. According to Finnish ring recoveries, only two terns that were found in Australia have flown further than Harri did. In reality, the way Harri flew according to the satellite readings was c. 12,564 km long. Harri's autumn migration took c. 57 days, and he averaged 220 km/day. If the obvious stopover days are excluded from the calculation, his average speed during the 38 active travelling days were as much as 330 km/day.

Winter 2002-2003

Harri's final wintering location was East of the Knysna national park (34.0ºS/23.0ºE) by the Indian Ocean. Most of the readings were from an area of only 70 km2.

Spring migration 2003

On 27 March at 4.30, Harri was still at his winter location on the Knysna bay on the south coast of South Africa, but on 1 April at 8.40, he was flying over Botswana, 1477 km from his winter quarters, and progressed 175 km during the following four hours. Since the transmitter did not change from its winter cycle of five days to its spring cycle of 36 hours until April Fool's Day, we do not know exactly which day Harri started on his journey. By the evening of 31 March, Harri had flown almost 1500 km from his winter location, so he must have left on the 27th or, at the very latest, on the 28th. From Botswana, Harri continued over the western tip of Zimbabwe and over Zambia, passing the Victoria Falls on 3 April at 7 in the morning. On 5 April, Harri was still in northern Zambia, in the West Lunga National Park, but the night between the 6th and 7th April, he spent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 630 km due West from the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika. Two days later, Harri spent the night (8-9 Apr) by the mighty River Congo, 346 km South of the Equator.

Having covered a third of his way home, Harri settled down for the night on 10 April on the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, 245 km North of the Equator. The following reading (12 April) also came from a conservation area, the Southern National Park in Sudan. From there, his journey continued exactly through Annikki’s wintering location to the Nubah mountain range (14 Apr). On the morning of Good Friday (18 Apr) at 03.36, Harri was 5843 km as the crow flies from his nest and 5741 km from his wintering location, i.e. he was 51 km from the half-way point after 21 days of hard work. Counting his total flight path, Harri had flown 5875 km by now, which was only 134 km (2.3%) ’extra’. His average speed had been 280 km/24 h. Harri spent Easter night (19-20 Apr) at the ’basin’ running into the White Nile, 9 km East of the Nile. The following readings have been coming from the region of Lake Nasser, a reservoir on the Nile, for an alarmingly long period (21-29 April).

It would appear that Harri’s transmitter battery is running out (as did Marjaana’s and Annikki’s earlier). The past few readings have been very unclear. If the co-ordinates from the readings would be correct, Harri would have continued on his way North. According to the readings, Harri was 319 km from Lake Nasser on 1 May, and 691 km from it on 3 May. On 5 May, Harri was only 160 km from the Mediterranean coast.

Since then, the readings continued to be very unclear. However, even a pessimistic analysis of the readings will tell us that Harri is alive and moving northwards. On 8 May, Harri was in Alexandria, and on 12 May, he was in Turkey, 66 km South of Lake Tuz (i.e. 210 km South of Ankara).

It was six days before we had another reading from Harri’s transmitter. According to that, on 18 May at 1 o’clock, Harri was flying over the Black Sea 135 km South-South-East of Odessa. The next reading told us that Harri had arrived in the St Petersburg area on the 21 May, only 30 km from the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Two days later, this record-breaking traveller had entered the Arctic Circle. Harri stopped for a final fill-up on 23-25 May at Vuorijärvi, which lies on the Russian side of the border nowadays, 67 km East-South-East from the church in Salla.

The first message to Finland came from this area on 25 May at 12.58, when Harri had reached Inari, 32 km South-South-West of Ivalo. At that time, his nest was only 125 km away, so it is very probable that Harri reached his nest the same day (25 May), though the first reading from his territory did not reach the satellite until 27 May at 05.39.

As mentioned above, all the readings from Harri’s transmitter have been classed as ”unreliable” since the end of April. Still, they have arrived in a logical order, and give at least a sketchy outline of Harri’s return route.

The transmitter was still set to its winter cycle when Harri started his spring migration, so we do not know exactly when his return trip started. But we know that the journey from the South coast of South Africa to Utsjoki took 57-59 days, which is nearly exact the same time as his autumn migration took (c. 57 days).

Summer 2003

In principle, Harri’s transmitter functioned all summer, though only five of the readings could be placed more exactly than 1 km. The readings came from a very large area around the nest from year 2002. In addition to Harri, another Osprey was observed near the nest, so it was probable that Harri managed to meet up with another female instead of Lea, who was killed during the migration. Though the Ospreys had obviously spruced up the nest after the winter, there were no eggs. This is why we have not managed to remove Harri’s transmitter yet, though its battery has nearly died.

Autumn 2003

Because the battery in his transmitter is running out, we have only received three very unclear readings from Harri. According to the first one, on 7 September, Harri was at the Black Sea by Constanta in Romania. The last readings show that Harri was at the coast of Egypt, 29 km Southwest of Alexandria, on 29 Sept – 4 Oct, in the same area where he stayed 18–25 Oct 2002.