In the last update we speculated as to how long Jules would remain in Morocco, or even if he would stay there for the winter, as a small number of European osprey do each year. However we now know that after spending just over a week on the coast between Casablanca and Safi he resumed his journey south at around 12:30 local time on Tuesday afternoon.
After arriving on the Moroccan coast on 9th October Jules initially favoured an area near Ouled Salam, spending his days along the shoreline, and then roosting 8 km inland. Then on 13th October he moved 20 km south to Oualidia where his daily routine was much the same; favouring an area of saltpans to the north-east of the town during the day before roosting a few kilometres inland.
Jules spent a week on the Moroccan coast between Casablanca and Safi
He finally resumed his migration at lunchtime on 17th October, flying 104 km south-west before turning more to the south at 16:21 and continuing onward for another two hours. He settled to roost 40 km north-west of Marrakesh at around 18:15 local time having flown 128 km during the course of the afternoon.
At 08:15 next morning Jules was perched beside a river 5.5 km south of his overnight roost and an hour later he had moved 2 km south-west, and was probably eating a fish. He resumed his migration at around 10:00 passing to the west of Marrakesh and onward towards the Atlas. These imposing mountains are a barrier to migrating birds and as Jules approached he changed his heading to west-south-west to avoid the high peaks. Over the course of the next five hours he flew south-west and then south around the western end of the mountains, flying at a maximum altitude of 2032 m. The video below shows his flight around the mountains.
By 17:00 Jules had flown 184 km and was south of the mountains but he showed no signs of letting up. He continued on a south-east and then south-west course for another five hours, covering another 139 km, before finally setting to roost two hours after sunset at 20:51. He had now reached the northern edge of the Sahara and he roosted at the top of a remote cliff face after a day’s flight of 323 km.
Jules roosted on the top of a cliff face on Wednesday night
Yesterday morning Jules left his roost site more than two hours before dawn and by 07:24 local time he had already flown 65 km. We haven’t received any data since because, as he heads across the Sahara, Jules will be out of the range of mobile phone masts. It will be fascinating to see where he is when the next batch of data comes through. You can check out his flight so far on our interactive map.
Jules’ flight through Morrocco 9-19 October
