Tracking Caledonia & Alba

This thread has been set up to follow the travels of Caledonia and Alba, the young ospreys raised at Loch Garten in 2012.

Their mother is “EJ”, the resident female at Loch Garten since 2003; there is some doubt about the identity of their biological father, given EJ’s dalliance with a male from a neighbouring nest, Blue XD, both before and after the return of her regular partner Odin, who raised them.     

Caledonia hatched on 16^th May and Alba on 18^th   May; they both fledged on 14^th July.

This is a link to the Loch Garten blog describing the ringing and satellite tagging.

Caledonia’s ring is Blue/White AA1, reading downwards. Alba’s is Blue/White AA2, reading upwards.

Following the tracking

This page gives a quick overview of the routes on a map, which will be more useful once they start migrating.

If you want to look at the routes in more detail on Google Earth, this page contains instructions on setting up your PC to do this.

This blog contains some useful information about how the tracking works – we are now on a 3-day reporting period.  

Thanks Sue C:

ALBA : Latest position:

CALEDONIA : Latest position:

I noticed yesterday two points for Caledonia almost 60 KM apart in a north/south direction for Aug 11th, with LG roughly in the middle. Have these just appeared, because I did not see them before?

JSB : Must have been recently updated. Here is Caledonia s latest position:

I have seen those points before. I just did not realise that they were as big a journeys as they were.

Cally was clearly the more adventurous of the two.  On 11 August she flew more than 118km on trips taking her both north of the nest and south.  On 9 August she flew ca 70 km east before returning along the same line.  One of her favourite perches seems to be only 0.4km away from the nest - possibly she could keep an eye on EJ or Odin arriving with a fish and follow them in!

Thanks so much for translating all that for me SHEILA  :)

I eagerly await the next down load

Thanks to All involved, in keeping us up to date with the latest news.

Alba's last known position, at 21.00 hrs last night (21st) was near Carlisle in Cumbria on the river Eden between Beaumount and Kirkandrews.

Caledonia's last known position, also at 21.00 hours last night was was just north of Harrogate near Thirsk in Yorkshire.

Approximate positions of Alba and Caledonia :

Looks like Alba has chosen well:

Thank You Alan, it is a relief to see they are taking sensible routes and not going off out to sea, hope they stay safe.

GE update is now available.

JSB  Thanks for the tip off. Really interesting tracks. It seems that Cally has flown quite a bit further than Alba.

It's very interesting to see that every time Alba stops, she is by water, clever girl. Cally is taking the scenic route.