Tuesday 24 January 2012

African mystery surrounds Welsh-born osprey

No signal from Leri since OctoberJanuary 2012: Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of a young female osprey that migrated with her two brothers from their nesting home in Mid Wales to Africa .



Three young ospreys are all satellite tagged but the female, named Leri by staff at the Dyfi Osprey Project near Machynlleth where she hatched, have not received a signal from the transmitter in Senegal since late October last year.

Dyfi Osprey Project manager Emyr Evans and his colleagues at Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust (MWT) are keeping their fingers crossed that the tracker transmitter has developed a fault and that she is still alive. 

'We're hoping it's just a faulty transmitter'‘Leri's transmitter was sending back confusing and conflicting data before it stopped working,' explained Mr Evans. ‘We hope it's a case of a faulty transmitter rather than something happening to Leri.'
Wildlife workers in Senegal are keeping a close watch out for Leri and her brother, Einion, who has also made his home in the country. Transmitters on both Einion and his brother Dulas, who is in neighbouring Gambia, are sending data back to Wales regularly.
The ospreys were satellite tagged in partnership with the BBC's Springwatch and Autumnwatch programmes, which are using the neighbouring RSPB's Ynyshir Reserve as their broadcasting base in Wales .

Leri's parents are soon due back in WalesThe three young birds, the first to hatch alongside the River Dyfi since 1604, are not expected to return to Wales until 2013 when they will be mature enough to breed. In the meantime, their fortunes will be closely followed by the transmissions thousands of miles away in Africa .

Their parents, Monty and Nora, are expected to fly back to Wales this spring, with the Dyfi Osprey Project preparing to reopen on March 30. Last year, Monty arrived at Cors Dyfi Reserve, Derwenlas on April 6 and the first chick, Einion, hatched in June.

‘Because he bred last year, we are hoping he will come back a little earlier this spring,' said Mr Evans. MWT has created a new website with regular blogs for each of the ospreys at http://www.dyfiospreyproject.com for people wishing to receive the latest news about them.

Visitors to the Dyfi Osprey Project are able to see live, high resolution nest camera footage at the visitor centre on large plasma screens and view the resident wildlife from a specially built tower-hide with telescopes and binoculars.

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