The Flight of Bird S01 1999-2000

S01 was a four-year-old breeding female. BTO Ring number 1328981. Colour ring brown, with white lettering "SI" on her right leg.
Caught on Strathspey Estates, near Boat of Garten 6th August 1999.
Wing 512 mm, tail 228 mm, weight 1955g.

This female had been ringed as a chick in Sutherland on 15 July 1996 at nest 19; both chicks were females that year. This bird bred for the first time in 1999 at a nest that had not been occupied since 1995 (S10 was hatched at this nest in 1988). In 1999 she laid two eggs and reared one young, which is good for such a young female.

S01 had a stop-over in a flooded river valley, west of the Spanish border. Bird S08, the juvenile male was probably also there on 17/9.

Between 04:00 on 20/9 and 21:00 on 22/9, S01 moved 1683km south to a location in Western Sahara. The total distance of her outward flight was at least 5000km.

On arriving in Senegal, S01 settled in an area south of St Louis, very close to a National Park - the Parc National de la Langue de Barbarie. The park is home to numerous water birds whose numbers are swollen in winter by the arrival of migrants from Europe. She stayed in this area throughout the winter, apparently moving no more than 10km.

S01's radio give us locations every 2-3 days until 16/4 as she migrated northwards. She appeared to stop in Portugal in similar locations and use a similar route as used the previous September. Her return flight took 25 days and covered at least 5157km.

She nested again in Strathspey in 2000 andraised two young, the larger of which, a male S11 was subsequently tracked.

In 2001 S01 did not return to her nest site. A new pair of birds took over the site and reared two young.

The orange line indicates the autumn migration route, the red line the spring migration