Life’s a beach

In our last update on the latest movements of our satellite tagged osprey, Jules – who is wintering in the Casamance region of southern Senegal – we reported that he was dividing his time between favoured daytime perching and fishing spots on the coast and a regular roost site in mangroves 16 km inland. This is quite unusual given that most adult ospreys usually occupy a very small winter territory.

Jules has continued to favour the same stretch of coastline since the turn of the year, but over the past month he has also started roosting on the coast; usually among scattered trees about 800 metres from his favoured stretch of sand. Over the past month he has roosted on the coast more often than inland. Quite what has promoted this change of behaviour is unclear, but by doing so he is avoiding the necessity of a 32 km return flight each night.

Jules has been favouring a 1 km stretch of beach during the past two months.

Other than this change in roosting location, Jules’ behaviour has been much the same as the rest of the winter. He has favoured the same 1 km stretch of beach and continued to fish just offshore once or twice each day. Most of his fishing is done within 200 m of the shore, but on at least two occasions since 1st January he has flown further out to sea (1.5 km or more). When he roosts on the coast he is favouring an area of just over 1 km which is much more typical of the usual winter range of an adult osprey.

Jules’ latest movements – including a flight to the east on 16th February

Interestingly Jules roosted inland on the nights of 15th and 16th February and during the afternoon of 16th February flew 25 km to the east – perhaps flying around with other ospreys – and spent a few hours perched in creeks near Tionck Essil. Next day however he was back at his favoured spots on the coast and he roosted there that night.

Jules is likely to remain in Senegal until mid-late March before beginning his migration back to Strathspey.   You can check out all of his latest movements on our interactive map. Our other satellite tagged osprey, Blue DF is wintering 30 km ENE near the village of Baila, but unfortunately we have stopped receiving data from his transmitter due to a technical fault. There is more information here.