Concern grows as signal from young osprey chick disappears (UK)

[Donna]

Migrating bird had been tracked to Africa


CONCERN is mounting over the fate of one of the osprey chicks that left the Highlands during the summer.

Two youngsters born at the famous Loch Garten nest were fitted with satellite tracking tags and their migration has since been followed online.

The female ospreys, Rothes and Mallachie, left Strathspey in late August and both made it to West Africa in October.

Contact with Mallachie, however, has since been lost and her last known position was southern Senegal, close to the border with Guinea-Bissau.

RSPB Scotland site manager at Loch Garten, Richard Thaxton, said: “Having followed Mallachie on her maiden epic migration to Africa and learned so much about the route ospreys take, it is certainly disappointing to have now lost contact with her.

“We have received no new data on her whereabouts for over two weeks now, and though we are worried and cannot rule out that something has happened to her, it need not necessarily mean bad news.�

He said tags sometimes fail and Mallachie’s may have malfunctioned or dropped off.

He added: “Obviously, we would like to think and hope that Mallachie is perfectly OK, and that the explanation is a technical one, but we cannot know for sure.

“We will just have to wait and see if she does start transmitting again, or that we do see her back in Scotland one day, identified by her leg ring code, white PM.�

Rothes has been spending her time island-hopping in the Bijagos archipelago, off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. The most recent data last weekend shows her to have returned to the Guinea mainland, near Valera.