Fantastic news as our young Osprey Blue YD from Angus has made landfall on the African continent safely! Despite leaving his natal nest after Blue 44 from Loch of the Lowes, this young bird seems to be in a real hurry.

Excitingly, we had a report today from colleagues Tim Mackill and Jose Luis, that a fellow ornithologist working on the south Spanish coast saw a satellite tagged osprey fly over the coast of Cadiz at Cabo Roche at  exactly the time our data shows Blue YD crossing this point- amazing!

Blue YD made it safely across the straights of Gibraltar and over Tangier in less than four hours yesterday , and then roosted for his first night in Africa near the town of Fes in Morocco, by s small lake calledLakeDouyet.

Today he has headed south by southwest across the arid and forbidding landscape of Morocco’s mountains and deserts- by far the most dangerous part of his journey so far. He is making very good distance and by lunchtime today was in the Atlas Mountains, about 300 km into his crossing of Africa. He was near teh Aguelma Azrigza national park:

By contrast Blue 44 was, as of yesterday, still in southern France, resting up and relaxing near the coast on an ideal lake. The big question is: is this just a rest stop (not uncommon) or is our bird going to overwinter in this region? Thanks to one of our volunteers Kate, we have today made successful contact with the ranger for this lakes region who has a particular interest in Ospreys , and who is very helpfully  going to keep an eye out for our bird Blue 44 over the next few days and report any sightings to us.