As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday 7 February 2016

Missing Scottish osprey found 3,000 miles away in Senegal

Tagged male bird from nature reserve near Forfar spotted on a beach in west Africa after 18 months

Thursday 4 February 2016 16.59 GMTLast modified on Friday 5 February 201600.35 GMT

An osprey that went missing from a Scottish nature reserve for more than 18 months has been found almost 3,000 miles away – on a beach in Senegal.

The three-year-old male bird, known as Blue YD, was tagged with a lightweight satellite tracker in July 2012 at a Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) reserve near Forfar.

Yet the device stopped transmitting in May 2014, leaving the wildlife trust relying on eyewitness accounts to learn of Blue YD’s whereabouts, according to which the bird had been spotted various times in North Yorkshire and St Andrews in Fife.

But the bird has now been found to have joined the winter osprey migration to west Africa.
Blue YD was spotted in Senegal by a sister organisation. Leicestershire and Rutland WildlifeTrust had travelled to Lompoul sur Mer to look for another osprey, but found instead the bird that had gone missing for one-and-a-half years. SWT said it was “thrilled” at the news.

John Wright, from the Rutland osprey project, said: “This is the second visit I’ve made to Lompoul sur Mer and both times I’ve counted around 100 ospreys consisting many German and Scottish birds.”

He added: “It was fantastic to see that Blue YD was alive and well. He’ll no doubt be enjoying the final few weeks of warmth before he makes his way back to the UK for the breeding season at the end of March.”

Once extinct in the UK, there are now about 240 breeding osprey pairs in the UK thanks to conservation projects, the SWT said.

Seen in flight from below, the osprey has white or slightly mottled underparts. The fish-eating bird with long, angled wings has been on an Amber list of species for conservation as it is in historical decline due to illegal killing, and low breeding numbers.


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