Tracking a steppe eagle - one year on

 Its been almost exactly a year since we fitted a transmitter to a juvenile Steppe eagle, and released it at Al Jahra, Kuwait.  For the last few days (since 27 February) it has apparently been in a GSM hole in Saudi Arabia, just south of Kuwait, and has not uploaded any data. 

In the most general of descriptions, after release this eagle wandered a bit during last spring, then migrated north along a path that took it to the west of the Caspian Sea and into Russia.  The summer was spent wandering around Russia and Kazakhstan. In autumn 2020 it migrated again to the west of the Caspian, and spent the beginning of the winter in SW Yemen.  During the latter part of the winter 2020/21 it started moving north rather slowly, stopping off for days at at time at locations in Saudi Arabia.  Below is a map of its journey from the time it was tagged until mid January 2021.

Map of the movements of a young Steppe eagle during March 2020 - January 2021.

The map below shows the more recent movements, and its last location just south of Kuwait.  We think that it has probably entered a GSM hole, not least because we endured a gap in data upload last spring when the eagle flew through this area.

Movements of a juvenile Steppe eagle during January - March 2021.