This was a juvenile female Osprey; one of a brood of three (two females and one male) and she was the youngest. Her female parent was a Norwegian Osprey which was ringed as a chick 40 kilometres south of Oslo on 27th June 1992; she was found breeding at a nest in Morayshire in 1996 to 1999 and then moved to a nest in Nairnshire in 2000 and ousted the female S07. She bred successfully with the old male, which is now 15 years old and was reared at a nest just 3 kilometres distance. These birds are also the parents of chicks translocated to Rutland Water in 2000 (T05) and 2001 (U08); while the male was the parent of R06 in 1999.
This juvenile female was ringed on 10th July 2002 and weighed 1595 gms (a green and white colour ring SK was fitted to the left leg.) On 24th August, I retrapped the bird which had been flying for about a month. It was in excellent condition, weighing 2040 grams, which is heavy for an Osprey. It was fitted with a satellite transmitter. The co-ordinates for departure position are given for the town of Nairn. The juvenile departed during the afternoon of 12th September, once morning fog had cleared to bright sunshine with the advent of a big high pressure system over the Scotland and the UK. SSK travelled south over the Cairngorms on the 12th and roosted overnight near Braemar.
The young Osprey set off to the SSW in clear skies and little wind, passing the Forth Road Bridge at 1 pm, it crossed the Kirkcudbrightshire coast at 6pm and reached the north end of the Isle of Man less than an hour later. It had travelled about 300 kilometres during the day.
High pressure and clear sunny skies were perfect for migration and on the 14th, it left the Isle of Man and reached Holy Isle, Anglesey, at 1022 am. It was near the Dyfi estuary, north of Aberystwyth, at 1406 pm. The next good signal was at 0404am on 15th when it was near Lynmouth, North Devon, which presumably meant the Osprey roosted somewhere in NW Devon. A day's journey of at least 320 kilometres.
Excellent weather continued with clear skies and light winds. SSK was in Bideford Bay at 0745am and the next signal (the radio is programmed 8 hours on and 8 hours off) was at 1717pm and was about 10 kilometres SW of the south-west point of Brittany, France.
The bird had set off across the bay of Biscay in a direction SSW and by midnight was 200 kilometres north of Ribadeo on the north coast of Spain. (Nearly 600 kilometres since starting its day's journey in North Devon) By this time, the young Osprey was travelling over the sea at night and had entered a vigorous low pressure system centred to the west of Portugal.
With strong easterly winds and cloud cover, the first signals of 16th September showed that the bird was 400 kilometres west of NW Spain missing the north Spanish coast by hours.
When I looked at the weather maps for Spain and Portugal on 16th there was a big low pressure system to the west of Portugal and I could imagine the young Osprey being blown downwind in very poor weather conditions. He kept flying all that day and through the next night southwards over the open Atlantic Ocean on the far side of the weather system. During the morning he reached the easterly winds south of low and started to fly again towards the continent. In the afternoon his north-eastwards track took him towards the Portuguese coast. Finally I received a signal that he was back on land close to the little town of Odemira, probably on the Rio Mira. In past years, I have been there studying Ospreys on the Portuguese coast and it is a good place for Ospreys to fish and to rest.
SSK had completed an amazing journey of nearly 3000 kilometres and had flown non-stop for nearly 60 hours. An average of nearly 50kms per hour, much of it wind assisted.There was no doubt that his excellent fat supplies, when he left Scotland, had got him through a very hazardous migration. Overnight, he stayed near Odemira.
On 21 September I got a very good position at 1716pm and it was at the Vale de Gaio reservoir near Torrao. Since landing at Odemira he had moved about 85 kms NNE.
SSK remained in the area throughout October, until transmissions ceased at the end of the month.