On Wednesday evening this week Roy Dennis and Frank Law caught and satellite tagged another adult male osprey at Rothiemurchus Fishery in Aviemore. Unlike Blue DF who was colour-ringed as a chick, this new male was unringed and, as a result, we can not be sure if he is a breeding male at one of the local nests, or a youngster yet to establish a territory. Nevertheless this is really excellent news because it means we will be able to follow a second male on its autumn migration, and, assuming the bird survives the winter, collect a great deal of valuable information on its movements once it returns to Strathspey next spring.
Roy preparing to release Blue JV3 after tagging him
The new male, which Roy colour ringed as blue/white JV3, had put on a great deal of fat in preparation for migration and, like Blue DF, set off on migration the morning after being tagged. It had an excellent first day of migration, taking advantage of a north-westerly tailwind and flying 420 km before spending the night beside the River Calder between Leeds and Wakefield. We do not know the exact time that Blue JV3 left Starthspey but at 12:28 (BST – times shown on the map are GMT) he was 11 km north of Pitlochry and two hours later he passed over Edinburgh at an altitude of 1240 m. He crossed into English airspace at around 16:00 and then maintained a south-easterly course along the eastern Pennines before skirting around the east side of Leeds and then settling to roost for the night in trees beside the River Calder.
JV3 spent the night of 14th September beside the Rover Calder near Leeds
This morning Blue JV3 resumed his migration at dawn and headed powerfully south passing over Barnsley and then Sheffield before skirting around the west side of Derby at an altitude of 536 metres. By 08:45 he was approaching Leamington Spa had already flown 158 km from his overnight roost. It will be fascinating to see how far south he is when the next batch of data arrives.
You can check out Blue JV3’s migration on our interactive map.
By 08:45 this morning Blue JV3 had already covered 578 km, having left Strathspey just 24 hours earlier.
Our thanks to Julian Orsi and Rothiemurchus Estate for allowing us to catch and tag Blue JV3.
