The red-throated diver is a marine bird species wintering on the North and Baltic Seas, including off the German coast and breeding in the Arctic and boreal zone of North America, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Svalbard and Russia.
The DiverLog project aims to determine the impact of offshore wind farms on red-throated divers, from individual reactions to possible effects on the population. Over a period of three years, red-throated divers were caught and tagged in their resting area in the German North Sea.
A red-throated diver fitted with a transmitter in May has now returned from its breeding area in Siberia, where it spent the summer. The bird travelled to the most distant breeding grounds we have ever recorded. It covered over 5000 kilometres towards the east and even crossed the Taimyr Peninsula.
From there, it would only have been half the distance to the species' Pacific wintering areas. However, this bird flew back to the German Bight, an important wintering area for this species.
Most of the birds that have been tagged so far spent the summer in their breeding areas in northern Siberia. Other birds also spent the summer on Greenland and Svalbard.
The DiverLog project is funded by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency.
Please refer to the website of the DiverLog project www.divertracking.com for further information and maps of the red-throated diver migration routes.
