The Flight of Osprey T03 (2000)

T03 flew at least 1880km in the first 4 days after leaving Rutland Water. It then worked its way gradually south through southern Portugal. There were small movements recorded every day from 4/9 to 22/9 with the bird spending much of its time on the SW tip of Portugal, seemingly poised for another flight across the ocean similar to that from Lands End. Instead on 23/09 it flew SE, presumably along the coast to Cadiz. There it remained for 11 weeks making only small movements around the Bahia de Cadiz. (Click here for pictures of the area). The interactive map shows two accurate but unlikely positions recorded on 9th November.

By 11/12, T03 had crossed to North Africa and flew quickly south across the Atlas Mts and into the Sahara. We received very regular transmissions from its radio showing that it was travelling large distances each day (203, 283, 219, 435, 351 and 331km). By the evening of 16/12 it had probably reached the small settlement of Fderik, deep in the Mauretanian Sahara. The radio transmitted briefly on 17/12 and once on the 18th and 19th.

There were no subsequent transmissions received for seven months. Then suddenly in July and August 2001 a series of inaccurate but consistent locations were received from 720km further south. The position seem to be on or near the Atlantic coast but are not accurate enough to indicate whether the bird was moving. However, it seems that we can say with some certainty that the bird did at least complete its crossing of the Sahara.