Red 8T’s transmitter is no longer sending data but I have seen him regularly at his nest where his mate is now rearing young. He is often at the Rothiemurchus fishery making a nuisance of himself (from the photographer’s point of view) chasing away the other male ospreys, which are trying to fish. He is clearly now the dominant bird in the district.

Red 8T and his mate now have young – just one poor signal from his transmitter and that was near Rothiemurchus fishery which is one of his favourite fishing sites.

I was at Red 8T’s nest yesterday and his mate was incubating in the nest – Red 8T was absent and probably at the Rothiemurchus fishery. where I gather he thinks he is top dog and tries to chase the other ospreys away.

Red 8T is definitely back and his transmitter has stopped working. Yesterday Julian Orsi, Rothiemurchus ranger saw him at the fishery.  This winter they have built new photographic hides at the special osprey pond and its been freshly stocked so is now ideal for people to photograph ospreys. Contact Rothiemurchus Estate if you want to hire a hide.  Julian tells me that last year Red 8T was the dominant osprey at the fishery and often chased off other visiting ospreys.  It’s great that he is back for another breeding season after a difficult spring migration weather wise.

Yesterrday (11th April) I received a local report that Red 8T was back at the nest with another bird – there was nothing there when I visited on 9th but another person saw one bird on 10th. Let’s hope it’s Red 8T. There was also an earlier report of a satellite tagged bird in Cornwall but no proof that it was definitely Red 8T. I’ll check on my next monitoring visit to the ospreys in Badenoch & Strathspey

There have been no further signals from Red 8T’s transmitter so there has either been a transmitter failure or in the 4 days following the last transmission he set off over the Bay of Biscay and was lost at sea, or he was killed or died in Spain.  In the next few weeks I will check his nest site carefully to see if he returns to Scotland.

Expected to have data from Red 8T but nothing came in – may be he is hunkered down in the rain

Red 8T flew 482 km on 22nd – he started in Morocco and by midday was east of Rabat, where he moved more to the east and then north to fly over Quezzane. At 1800GMT he was south of Tetouan and at 1900 hrs had started the crossing over the sea and was east of Ceuta flying north at 33km/h some 620 metres above the sea. He reached Europe over Gibraltar and continued north, passing over Beatrice’s wintering site on the River Guadiaro at 2000hrs. An hour later he was roosting on a wooded hillside overlooking a mountain river near Benarraba. Heading home in good style –  last week I was in Strathspey when Rothiemurchus Estate started to stock one of his favourite fishing sites.

On March 19th to 21st Red 8T covered 1115 km and last night roosted s of Khouribga, south of Rabat.

Last night Red 8T roosted in the northern Mauritian desert after travelling 1350 km since leaving his wintering site. The previous night he roosted in the west rim of the amazing Richat Structure.

Red 8T’s migration journey to night roost site of 18th/19th March