Wow what an osprey – Amazingly Stan has managed to fly over 1560 km (967 miles) over the Atlantic Ocean to make safe landfall on the Cape Verdes. Last evening, while I was on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, Stan was flapping the last stretch over the ocean to an island called Sao Nicolau (I’ve flown over it a couple of times on my way to Sao Vicente while studying the CV ospreys). He was resting close to the sea at a headland at 2000 – (2200GMT), and non GPS data for 0208GMT and 0406GMT this morning showed that he was alive. The Cape Verdes have a small population of breeding ospreys which I think could comprise some lost exhausted birds from Europe. It’s got good fishing so as long as he recovers from his flight he should catch fish. I wonder if he will stay there or fly back to Senegal – he might even stay and join the local breeders. I always wanted to satellite track ospreys on the Cape Verdes and now we have one. One previous Scottish osprey has been found in CV – a bird ringed by Roger Broad found dead on Fogo. Stan is an amazing osprey.
Flight to Cape Verdes
Northern Cape Verdes
Point on Sao Nicolau
