This thread has been set up to follow the travels of Caledonia and Alba, the young ospreys raised at Loch Garten in 2012.
Their mother is “EJ”, the resident female at Loch Garten since 2003; there is some doubt about the identity of their biological father, given EJ’s dalliance with a male from a neighbouring nest, Blue XD, both before and after the return of her regular partner Odin, who raised them.
Caledonia hatched on 16th May and Alba on 18th May; they both fledged on 14th July.
This is a link to the Loch Garten blog describing the ringing and satellite tagging.
Caledonia’s ring is Blue/White AA1, reading downwards. Alba’s is Blue/White AA2, reading upwards.
Following the tracking
This page gives a quick overview of the routes on a map, which will be more useful once they start migrating.
If you want to look at the routes in more detail on Google Earth, this page contains instructions on setting up your PC to do this.
This blog contains some useful information about how the tracking works – we are now on a 3-day reporting period.
Fab news, pics and info here, thank you Roberto et al :-*
IMAGICAT
Many Thanks to you All from me, too.
My thanks to all for the posts and expecially Roberto. Just wonderful to read and see pics of Caly.
Margobird
Its fantastic to get such an update on Caley - wouldnt it be wonderful to have this for all the birds we worry about. Thank you Roberto for looking out for her.
If Roberto is going to be a regular poster then I think it would be nice for him to have his own thread to report on Caledonia. After all this could go on for a very long time and hopefully will.
Tiger Signature
I think that is an excellent idea Tiger.
ChloeB & Tiger's Osprey Data
Thanks Tiger. I think it could be necessary for Roberto to have his own thread as his posts could be lost on here.
EDIT, On second thoughts, could it not just not end up as a copy of this present page as people would want to respond to his posts and maybe ask questions.
I also think it could end up a copy of this present page and a good idea.
An Idea, maybe start a thread from January this year and copy all info from January over.
edit, maybe just leave as I am not sure :)
My thoughts.......
The Loch Garten blog, run by Richard Thaxton, is the official record of LG's tracking, and Roberto is reporting Caley sightings to Richard, who was his initial contact, on a "professional-to-professional" basis. This needs to continue, especially as Richard doesn't take part in the Forum (and has just said in a blog comment that he doesn't read it). Also, there's a significant sector of the audience which reads the Blog, but not the Forum.
If Roberto also wants to take part in the Forum on a "social" basis, that would be great, and he'd be most welcome, but I wouldn't want him to feel under any pressure to do that.
The purpose of this forum thread is to explore/comment on Loch Garten's tracking in depth (with a certain amount of speculation!) and I think it would be a pity if interesting information was posted somewhere else, where it might get overlooked. I do understand why separate threads got created to report on the VAP team's trip, and their Q&A session; I set up links to those threads from this one, so they are not forgotten once they slip off the front page.
So, I would say no to a separate thread by Roberto on Caledonia - I think it would just result in duplication, and for sure, we would all be looking in both threads in any case!
After all, Caledonia is the only osprey from LG being tracked at the moment - and her stay in Seville is the main topic of conversation in this thread. IF she is still in contact in the summer, and IF further chicks are tagged at LG, I think there would be a case for having separate threads then - but let's cross that bridge if/when we come to it.
Thanks Sue C I agree with you, it would put pressure on Roberto, and should keep the link open between himself and Richard to share any news.
It would be nice if he did want to keep us informed here too on any osprey news from his part of the world.
http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/wildlife-webcams/loch-of-lowes/