From Highlands to Islands

Could it be that Rothes has chosen island living as her winter home?  She has been on the move again over the weekend and her most recent position, at 10pm last night, showed her to be in the Bijagos Islands off the coast of Guinea Bissau.  These are an archipelago of 18 main islands and dozens of smaller ones, so plenty for her to choose from.

At 5pm on Friday 2nd October, Rothes confounded my earlier prediction that she would pitch-up at Djoudj National Park in Senegal, instead passing it by to the west near a place called Kayar.  Then at 6pm she crossed the wider end of the peninsula that has Dakar, the Senegalese capital at its distal end, passing near to Sebikotane, and then at 7pm near Mbourouk, where she roosted.

Next morning, at 8am (Saturday 3rd), she headed off-shore, south of Dakar.  It would suggest that she is gaining in confidence, to consciously opt to head out to sea, when being over land with rivers and wetlands to hunt for food might seem to be a safer bet. Yet off she went, for several hours, heading south but west of the Gambia River and Banjul, the Gambian capital.  Eventually, after several hours at sea, at 1pm she cut back east a little, making landfall in southern Senegal near Abene. Rothes continued to head south, until 3pm when she cuts away due south west to a place near Etouta.  She then  crossed the Casamance River -stopping to feed, maybe, before pressing onto the border between Senegal and Guinea Bissau where, come 7pm she went to roost, for what must have been some well-earned rest.

At 11am yesterday (Sunday 4th) she began to move on through Guinea Bissau, passing near to Canchungo, before heading back towards the coast west of the capital, Bissau at noon.  By 1pm she was out at sea again, making what looks like a crossing to the Bijagos Islands.  Could she see them ahead of her and opted to head their way, or was it just chance that they were on her path prompting her to make landfall there.  Her last fix was on an un-named island just north of another in the island group called Ilha das Galinhas.  Will this now be her final destination?  What is it that makes them either press on further, or decide to call a halt to their migration? 

Meanwhile, after Rothes long stop-over near Bordeaux, it would now appear to be Mallachie's turn to be boring  - no, I ought not say that really, but you know what I mean - yep she is still bimbling about in Tejo National Park, Portugal. Still, she is obviously fine and content there, so that's good.

Roy Dennis called by the Osprey Centre yesterday with a group of multi-national delegates on a field outing from a Raptor Conference taking place at Pitlochry. They were from USA, Taiwan, Isreal, Spain and  elsewhere, many of them involved in osprey tracking elsewhere, USA mainly.  The Centre is of course closed now, but for this far-flung group, having come so far, I opened it up for them to see and hear about what we do at Loch Garten.

In my last post, I mentioned the first skiff of snow on the Cairngorms. Well, this morning we had the first frost, it was white over at 6am today.  It didn't last long as the day dawned bright and sunny, including some warmth with it.  The clear, star-bright, frosty conditions last evening, sent the horny red deer stags into over-drive. They were gie-ing it laldie with their bellowings. Their roaring resonating all round the Loch Garten area.  We had friends staying and we stood in the darkness listening to them roar, and (a bit of a tease I know), had a bit of fun by bellowing back at them.  Our renditions were suitably similar to then get them to roar back at us in response, with what sounded like five or six all starting up. Just slightly alarming was the feeling that they were getting louder and thus closer, sensing us as rivals and spoiling for a challenge.....at which point we chose to stop our teasing, as discretion is the better part of valour and instead we took to our heels!