It has been a week of contrast for our two young ospreys, with one unsettled but not covering any great distances, and the other going country hopping!

FR3 has had another fairly quiet seven days, travelling back and forth between the various bolongs (creeks) along a roughly 15km (9 mile) stretch on the south side of the Gambia River.

Activity in the first half of the week (3rd-6th November) focussed on the areas around N’Demban and Sutu Sinjang, with the exception of a brief trip NE towards Kandonk between 1 & 3pm on the 5th.

The latter part of the week (7th-9th) saw a westward shift, with FR3 exploring an area to the north and west of Bulok.

Hopefully at some point FR3 will stop wandering altogether and establish a permanent roost. However, with competition from adult birds and other youngsters this isn’t an easy feat to achieve.

 

Having been very settled, sibling FR4 has now gone to the other extreme. Over the past week our young osprey has travelled over 300km (186 miles) and is now in Guinea-Bissau!

Leaving the Baobolon Wetlands at around midday on the 4th, FR4 travelled west along the north bank of the Gambia river. By mid-afternoon the following day our young osprey had crossed the river to the south of Banjul and was heading inland in a south-westerly direction towards the Darsilami wetlands, which lie on the boundary between the Gambia and Senegal.

Roosting here for the night, FR4 then flew SE into Senegal on the morning of the 6th, traversing the Casamance river catchment. Having crossed the Casamance FR4 spent the next couple of days recuperating among tidal wetlands on the river’s south bank.

The journey resumed sometime after 10am on the 9th as by 2pm FR4 had crossed the border into Guinea-Bissau. Continuing SE across the Cacheu river our young osprey appears to have skirted around the coast of this north-westerly region of Guinea-Bissau, although there are big gaps in the data so we can’t be sure of the route. Hopefully we may be able to fill some of these after the next download.

Jonathan