First things first: Happy New Year to you all, I'm back up in the frozen north (they might think it's been cold down south in London, but it's nothing compared to up here: minus 10 degrees C / 14F at 9.30pm last night when I got back to Abernethy). Fortunately today's a lot warmer (about 0 degrees C / 32 F).

The big news is that Nethy's moving - she finally got bored of Lac de Guiers (or possibly the weather there got colder like it did here in the UK) and on 31st December sometime after 9am, she headed south west, flying 195km (122 miles) to hit the coast south of Dakar (the capital of Senegal), where she spent the night. On 1st January she flew another 55km (34 miles) south east along the coast, spending the night on the edge of a mangrove area close to a large delta system. She didn't stop there though, but continued along the coast another 60km (37 miles) crossing the border into Gambia on Friday (2nd January). Over the weekend she may have continued still further - Friday's data will be interesting to see.

Meanwhile, back here at Abernethy, everything is icy (including most of the pipes in my house quite possibly, though I'm not turning the water back on to prove that fact just yet!). It is all looking very nice and wintry though. The giant feeder is going to need a re-think (maybe steel cable instead of rope!)

Tune in on Friday for the next lot of data.

Alice