Having arrived in Gambia, FR3 has spent the last few days travelling west, exploring both the main Gambia river and its lower tributary.

Roosting close to the north bank of the main river on the night of the 11th, FR3 set off down-river the next morning sometime after 10am. There was a three hour gap in the data but by 2pm our young osprey was roosting in forest to the south-east of the settlement of Tendaba, and remained there for the rest of the day.

 

 

Tendaba was originally built as a hunting camp in the 1970s but now mainly accommodates birdwatchers instead, due to its close proximity to the Baobolong Wetlands (a Ramsar site of international importance for birds) on the opposite side of the river.

 

 

 

On the 13th FR3 left the main river system shortly after 11am and headed SW towards its lower tributary. Joining the lower river approximately 8km (5 miles) south of Kuli Kanda at 1pm, FR3 then flew NW in the direction of Karantaba before turning SW to rejoin the river by 6pm, roosting there for the night. The data for the 14th only goes up to 1pm but FR3 had spent the latter part of the morning investigating a tributary of the lower river.

FR4 hasn’t ventured far in the last five days as you can see from the latest satellite image below – a sensible strategy if you can fulfil all of your energy needs without having to travel any distance. As I should have explained in my last blog, the red dots and orange lines represent new data whilst the green lines are historic data. The furthest FR4 travelled from the main daytime roost (the central cluster of red dots) was 4km (2.5 miles) to the SE on 14th at 11am.

More new anon…

Jonathan