This week there is very happy news and very sad news about the ospreys' progress on their migration journeys since leaving the Tweed Valley just over a month ago.

Firstly, the good news is that, after an absence of any satellite data for about six weeks from FK8 (the three-year-old female), suddenly, we have received strong clear signals from Portugal! She is back on her winter territory and it would seem from the data that she has been there since August 29. We do not have the full details of her journey yet but hopefully will soon be able to report how she got there and where she has been.

Daniel Raposa, who lives in Portugal very kindly went on an expedition to search for FK8 at her known haunts in the Sines area of Portugal at Barragem de Morgavel on September 23 but was not lucky enough to see her. Once we sort through the back-log of data we should be able to find out exactly what happened on her journey. Hopefully, the data will continue to be transmitted and we can keep track of her once more.

Now for the deeply sad news, Perky is presumed to have died. He had been doing really well at the Lac De Joux in Switzerland and had even been spotted with a large fish in his talons by Wendy Strahm (co-ordinator for the osprey reintroduction project in Switzerland).

He was staying at the lake and not really moving far from the area, making fishing trips and then returning to lakeside trees to feed and roost. However, the final data from September 24 and 25 showed virtually no movement from a roost site on the shore, up a steep embankment.

Phil Atkinson from Movetech telemetry has analysed the data received from the last two days transmission and has concluded that most likely the bird has died.

The temperature readings from the tag are more like ambient atmospheric readings and not body temperature, there was also a drop in voltage at the same time as the temperature drop and this could indicate that the solar panel was covered, perhaps if Perky had died and was was lying on his back.

On average, Perky had been flying about 20km per day doing fishing trips and then to roost sites but the last two days of readings show a movement average of only a few metres, this would be consistent with the theory that Perky has died and the carcass has fallen down the steep embankment to the shore of the lake. Wendy will be checking the area thoroughly for us, to see if she can recover a carcass and the satellite tag. On further analysis of the data Phil also concluded that Perky died during the night and with the presence of eagle owl in the area (confirmed by Wendy), the likely possible cause of death could be predation.

Perky’s sister Pinky, is still in Spain at the Rio Agueda. She has briefly crossed the border into Portugal but returned to Spain where she is exploring the river systems and seems to be doing very well so far. It will be interesting to see if she moves further south with the onset of Autumn.

Other Scottish satellite-tagged osprey journeys can be seen on the google earth image map and by far the race winner has to be the female osprey from Dumfries and Galloway that has been the first to reach all the way down to the Gambia on October 1.

Of the eight ospreys shown, one is in France, two are in Morocco, one in Gambia, two in Spain, one in Portugal and one (deceased – Perky) in Switzerland. The birds which are still in Europe are quite far north for overwintering, so there is likely to be further southerly movement before they have finally settled. It is expected that the ospreys in Morocco will continue further south too before they settle.