No news of Fiddich

On 12th April, Gambian bird guide JJ and Colin from Kantong, who are friends of Tim Mackrill,  made a special over land  drive of over 200 miles along the whole of The Gambia to visit the village where Fiddich’s transmitter has been giving signals.  It was a remote village in Senegal near the Gambia River and unfortunately they were unable to learn much about Fiddich from the villagers. From the data I am pretty sure unfortunately that Fiddich is dead. Today 14th April the transmitter has sent signals again suggesting the bird and/or transmitter have been put outside again.  JJ left his details so may be we will lern more about what happened. It was a tremendous effort by JJ and Colin, and we are very grateful. We really need to know more about the behaviour of the juveniles and why individuals suddenly leave favoured wintering locations and why if they travel inland they seem to run into problems. There are clearly problems for them from competion with adults and probably with the drying up of temporal wetlands.