After Tiger started the thread for tracking Rothes and Mallachie I thought that we could do with a thread for the tracking of ospreys fitted with transmitters by Roy Dennis. As the "summer" marches on it won't be long before the only way we can get our osprey fix is to follow their migrations.
This year we have the opportunity of following all three tagged birds from last year: Nimrod, Beatrice and Morven. It will be fascinating to find out if they will winter in exactly the same place as last year, and also whether they take the same route.
Added to that Roy has tagged two more adult males this year, Red/white 8T (an Abernethy bird) and Morven's other half (Logie's ex fella). I'm not certain whether Roy has any further transmitters or will attempt to catch any more adult males but, including Rothes and Mallachie, we will be able to follow at least 7 ospreys on their incredible journeys this autumn.
Red 8T is safely flying down Portugal. Here is a clip from Ron."His epic journey was 1067 miles, 1718 kms, in 37 hours of continuous flying; the easterly winds over the Bay of Biscay had considerably increased the distance."http://www.roydennis.org/osprey/index.asp?id=173&sid=
Isn't it incredible how such a large bird can fly these enormous distances in one go:)
ChloeB & Tiger's Osprey Data Site
Sat track schedule Spring 2014
LG 7 days; RW & SWT nil; LDOP varies
Rothiemurchus' last known position early evening 110909.
He's now on dry land, after a night's roost, will be looking for breakfast.
Latest update from Roy........Today's look at the data shows that Rothiemurchus was ashore by 1900GMT and was in a small wood in a town along the Portuguese coast just north of Espina, and he was still the same site an hour later. Hope he has a rest of overnight and then finds somewhere to catch fish.
It seems he flew to the coast, whatever was going on out at sea. I think Roy means the town of Espinho. There's a big lagoon slightly further south, with adjacent woods - looks ideal for a break.
What relief hope he rests a while, catches some fish before he continues. I worried about him terribly so this is great news. Thanks Sue C. Have only just logged in and checking through notication emails so this really made my day.
Margobird
What fantastic news to wake up to! Was busy all day yesterday and missed all the excitement. Lets hope that Rothie finds a nice spot to recuperate from his mammoth flight. Also hope that Roy manages to work out what was going on out in the Bay of Biscay, it would be great to think that he rested on a ship for a while!
Meanwhile Red 8T pushes on south, Morven appears to be finally getting going after her odd sojourn north in Caithness and Talisman and the mighty Nimrod wait. We can expect more spectacular journeys in the coming weeks.
Thanks for all the updates everyone. Great news about Rothie and Red 8T:)
Looking forward to Nimrod setting off. I predict a jet propelled migration!
Am going back to Alan P's post on page 6 regarding the picture of the unknown osprey. I've heard back from the photographer (Thibault) who has done his best to magnify the picture. He took the original from quite a distance and had already massively cropped it. He emailed me the same picture but had lightened it up considerably to make it clearer and it seems that the osprey he photographed has GH on his left leg, possibly a black background but this cannot be confirmed (leg was in shadow so colour could be misleading). I've sent it on to Roy Dennis as I'm not sure how to check this out myself. Thibault also is hooked on our migration site (he had already done so via Didier Domec) and has let me know that several photographer friends of his are also trying to photograph said osprey and if they get clearer pics, we might have a more positive identification.
I think the RSPB have quite a fan base in Aquitaine. Who knows what other ospreys they might snap!
Thanks FlyingC for that detective work. I did try magnifying the original picture but it became pixelated and I could not make out a thing.
It is marvellous that we have people in other countries looking out for our birds.
Thanks once again Your a star.