Great news – our satellite tagged osprey, Jules, made it back to Starthspey yesterday afternoon after a 20 day migration from the Casamance region of Senegal. At 15:30 yesterday afternoon he was at Rothiemurchus Fishery – the location where we tagged him last September.
In our previous updated we reported that Jules was flying west over Stoke-on-Trent on Wednesday morning. We now know that he paused briefly to the south of Leek before continuing north at around 11:00 BST. He passed to the east of Manchester two hours later at an altitude of 475 metres. He continued north through the Pennines, averaging around 30 kph and reached Northumberland at 18:30. He continued flying until 21:00 when he finally settled to roost for the night in a forested area immediately south of the Scottish border after a day’s flight of 326 km.
Jules flew directly over Stoke-on-Trent at an altitude of just over 300 metres on Wednesday morning
Yeserday morning Jules cleared sensed that he was close to home because he continued north at first light and reached the Firth of Forth to the east of Edinburgh at North Bewick at 08:40. He crossed the Firth at an altitude of approximately 150 metres before continuing on through Fife, over Dundee and then into Angus. By 12:32 he was in southern Moray and at this point he turned due west to fly direct to Aviemore. By the time he reached Rothiemurchus he had flown 244 km since leaving his roost site in the Borders.
Jules does not have an established nest, and so it will be very interesting to follow his movements this summer. We’ll be sure to keep you updated over the coming months, but won’t be publishing any further movements on our interactive map because Jules is likely to visit established osprey nest sites in the course of his wanderings, many of which are kept confidential in order to protect the birds. You can however check out his complete 20 day migration on the map here.
Jules flew 570 km over two days before arriving in Aviemore yesterday afternoon
