Wednesday 18 May 2016

OSPREY FK8 BREIFLY VISITS BARDSEY

This spring we have had three Ospreys pass over the island. Two, including this one below were seen on Sunday 15th May.

However, on 8 May Steve Hinde saw an Osprey over the north end of Bardsey. He watched the bird head off across the sound heading towards Anglesey and last night we uncovered a fantastic story about its origins and travels!

It all began on 17 May when the following tweet was posted on Twitter by the Loch Garten Osprey Centre:
RSPB Loch Garten ‏@RSPBLochGarten May 16
We've been in touch with Diane Bennett at the Tweed Valley Osprey Project and she is thrilled to hear that FK8...
http://fb.me/14DfP6850

We were informed about this via a tweet from JW:
JW ‏@jw4926 May 17
@RSPBLochGarten @ThreaveOspreys FK8 - maybe the one seen @bardseyobs on 8th May?


...at this point I saw the satellite track map (below) and thought that it looked like the Osprey FK8 had been very very close to the island, but I was not sure about which date it passed.



I contacted Diane Bennet at the Tweed Valley Osprey project and asked her if she could let me know the date and time the bird passed the island. She replied it was the 8th of May at 10.38 GMT. Steve Hinde had told me it was 11.40 BST... we had a match!!

Diane and I then sent a few more emails and details to each other and I have now taken most of the following section from
https://tweedvalleyospreys.com/


FK8 journeys


The best news from Tweed Valley Ospreys is the return of FK8. The satellite tagged two-year-old returned to the UK on 7th May. She has been extensively exploring since her return and has spent two nights over on the Isle of Lewis and Harris before crossing back to the mainland north of Ullapool, on 11th May. She then headed east to Golspie and then north to Wick. After exploring the area she moved inland to roost overnight west of Loch Calder on 12th May where she hopefully tucked into a tasty trout.

On 13th May she crossed the North Sea to Troup Head before heading south onto Haddo House. While there she roamed the landscape before roosting overnight in a forest plantation nearby. At approximately 4.30am she began to fly around the area before purposefully heading southwards again at 8.47am. She flew high over Tomintoul and arrived at the famous Loch Garten RSPB site at 15.07pm.



There, she was photographed and seen on their live camera in the visitor centre looking resplendent. They sent over photographs of our bird and it is fantastic to see her.

The first we heard of her visit was via an email received from Julie Quirie at the RSPB Centre saying “we thought that you would like to know that your two year old satellite osprey FK8 paid us a visit here at Loch Garten! She spent around 15 mins on our camera tree and was good enough to pose and show off her leg ring so that we could identify her. There was a male osprey in the area at the same time with a white leg ring but we were unable to identify that one”.


FK8 sitting on the camera tree at the famous Loch Garten nest site


Visitors at Loch Garten watching FK8 on the HD TVs

The last we saw of her was when she was ringed in 2014 as a six week old fledgling. She is now a magnificent and beautiful fully grown adult. Although she is not ready to breed this year, she is certainly checking out good places as likely territory for next year. She left the Loch Garten reserve and her satellite data shows us that from there she headed further south to Loch Insh. We are now waiting for more data to see where she goes next, but my bet is that having checked out north, south, east and west, she is surely heading home to the beautiful Scottish Borders Tweed Valley!

Below is the satellite image of her passing Bardsey island.

1 comment:

  1. What a beautiful girl. So good to see her on camera and so glad she's making her way home ........

    ReplyDelete