Fearna is now living in quite a small area (13 square km) of wetlands beteen two small rivers south of the main stream of the River Senegal. Life gets easier once all the adult ospreys have gone north and the fishing is left to the juveniles.
April 24th to 30th
Rothiemurchus remains wsaiting on the Ortigueira estuary in NW Spain – spending a lot of time at a wooded hill on the west side of the estuary opposite Ortigueira. He is getting so late it’s a pity he would not breed in Spain! Rain
April 24th to 30th – altitudes exagerated
ing there today with a north wind over the sea, but better tomorrow and sun on Friday. Hurry up!
Rothiemurchus flew north on 24th to the Ortigueira estuary in the very NW of Galicia – still there at 1400GMT today
April 24th – 26th
Fearna has changed her behaviour ad is now roosting at night nearer the river – this could be due to the fact that any adult or sub-adult ospreys will have migrated north and left the wintering grounds free for last summer’s juvenile ospreys.
April 10th to 24th
Rothiemurchus has flown up th
April 20th – 24th
rough Portugal with several overnight stops and today is at his favourite haunts in NW Galicia. Weather over the Bay of Biscay is good so I hope he gets a move on north.
Rothiemurchus roosted on the banks of the River Guadalquivir at La Senuela on night of 18th/19th April and next morning moved across the river and settled there 0700-0800GMT before heading NW over Isla Mayor. He flew on NW between Seville and Huelva and after 1400hrs flew across the border into Portugal. At 1600 and 1700 was near a small dam 15 km SW of Moura and then settled nearby for the night in olive farms after a day’s flight of 181 km. Once again he seem to be heading for Galicia and the long crossing of the Bay of Biscay – hope the winds are not strong easterly
April 19th
After two days of delays Rothiemuchus reached Spain today – he left Tangier at 1300GMT and an hour later came ashore near Cape Trafalgar and at 1700hrs (last signal this batch) was flying north near Lebrija after a day’s flight of 239 km
Arrives in Spain – April 18th
Rothiemurchus set offbefore 0800GMT and flew north, passing east of Rabat at 1400GMT. Two hours later he was close to Kenitra but at 1700 GMT he turned back and roosted near a small lake in a forest, after a day’s glight of 140 km
April 15th
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.
At midday on 12th April I saw Morven at her nest for the first time; she was perched on the top of next door Scots pine and I could see her transmitter and colour ring. She fluttered down to the nest to give intruder calls as an osprey passed overhead and then slowly flew off to join it. Great that she has made it back after a difficult spring migration weather wise.
