The Flight of Osprey S11 2000

This Osprey was a juvenile male. It was ringed in the nest belonging to S01 near Boat of Garten on 29th July 2000 and was the larger of two young. It has a green ring with the white characters 3T on its left leg.

It weighed 1515 g with a wing-length of 390mm. He flew for first time about 4th August. Bird monitored by Roy Dennis.

S11's intial direction was SW and, with a strong NE wind, it crossed into Ireland.

It left the south coast on 12/09 headed out over the sea at about 13:00. 15 hours later it had flown 500km and was perhaps just over half way across the ocean. The first two recorded positions indicated a direction which, if continued would have taken it past the tip of Spain and out into the Atlantic. However, by 04:30 on 13/09 its direction had changed to slightly East of South and there were further changes of direction during the next 6 hours (these positions would be consistent with it having rested on a ship heading SW). By midnight ,S11 had arrived at the Spanish coast, though the actual time of arrival is not known. Its continuous flight from Ireland totalled more than 1008km and was accomplished in less than 36 hours.

It recovered quickly from its long flight and flew south another 150km and 170km in the next two days. Then came several days near a small lake close to the close in central Portugal. It was sighted several times between 19 and 26/9 by Joao Petronilho and Jose Vingada.

After a fortnight on the west coast of Portugal, S11 suddenly moved south on 30/9. By 17:30 he had flown 390km and passed the south-westerly tip of Portugal. By 23:00 it had flown another 300km and was approaching the Morocco coast near Casablanca. The next day it continued another 512km southwards up into the Atlas mountains. After leaving the west coast of Portugal it flew 1200km (750miles) in two days. There was a very marked change of direction towards the south west between 2 and 4/10 and the bird continued relentlessly to the Sine Saloum Delta, about 140km from where its mother, S01 spent the previous winter. The bird continued south through Senegal/Gambia to the border with Guinea Bissau, before settling near the Senegal coast until the end of the year.

In January S11 began to move again, with a 50km excusion to the Gambia River and then flying 160km north towards Dakar on 24/1. There was a further short excursion 60km south-east in March. Its radio began transmitting irregularly in April.