The latest satellite data shows that juvenile osprey, Deshar, is still settled on the Senegal coast. Over the past month she has favoured the same 10 km section of coastline, spending the vast majority of time on two peninsulas, some 5 km apart. This is an area favoured by many wintering ospreys, but the fact that Deshar is still there shows that she is holding her own amongst adult birds; some of whom will have been returning to the same area for many winters.
One interesting feature of this latest satellite data is how far she is travelling out to sea. During the winter ospreys will generally catch one or two fish every day, and the satellite data indicates that Deshar normally catches her fish close to the shore. However she has flown between 5 and 10 km out to sea on at least eight occasions during the last month. Ospreys tend to prefer to fish in shallow water, so perhaps she is visiting shallow off-shore reefs? It will be interesting to see if this behaviour continues over the coming weeks.
Don’t forget you can follow all of Deshar’s movements on our interactive map.