Janine, one of our seasonal osprey staff at the project, is currently on holiday. She's gone to Gambia and Senegal with our colleagues from Rutland Water. Ten days of osprey watching in the sun - not bad!

Here she is in the 'control room' amidst the chaos last summer

She's texted a few times with osprey sightings - they've seen a few German ringed birds, one French bird, but alas no British ospreys to date. Unfortunately, Einion is just too far north to go and see, but yesterday and today is the closest she's going to get to Dulas, near a village called Panchang just north of the Gambia River. Janine will be back in the UK next week and will write the next blog about her African osprey adventure.

In the last blog I talked about three swans which had been colour ringed with blue leg rings on the River Leri. This week the story is similar except  that it involves a blue colour-ringed osprey.

Around half of all Scottish osprey chicks are ringed each season by dedicated volunteers who do this work free of charge. Keith Brockie and his wife Hazel are two such volunteers. Two seasons ago on June 27th, 2010, they ringed a male osprey chick from a nest near Dunkeld, Perthshire with a blue colour ring with white lettering 'UB'. Remarkably, John Wright of the Rutland Osprey team photographed this very bird just a few weeks later in September 2010 near Algericas, southern Spain. Blue UB had made it that far and in good time too, but where would this bird end up and what would become of him?

In his excellent website 'Wright's Wanderings',  John wrote in 2010: "It took me over two weeks to read this ring as he was always sitting in the middle of the marsh. Then one morning I went to the marsh and he was sitting on a post just the other side of the river, the ring number clear as day."

Blue UB in southern Spain, September 2010. © John Wright

Fast forward just over a year and Pip Rowe, a friend and keen osprey follower is on holiday in Senegal, and who does she bump into? You've guessed it - Blue UB!  Pip took this photo just a few days ago, January 5th, 2012.

Blue UB in the Sine Saloum Delta, Senegal. © Pip Rowe

Blue UB was perching on some low branches on a mud flat in the Sine Saloum Delta in Senegal - the very same place that Roy Dennis went to on his recent visit to Africa with the BBC's Autumnwatch, and also the same place that Einion visited just a few weeks ago. It's interesting to see the changes an osprey goes through from juvenile to (sub) adult. On John's photo, all the characteristic signs of a newly fledged osprey are there - feathers in good condition, golden colour tips to the feathers, pale chest plumage, a slight appearance. A year and a half old on Pip's image, Blue UB has gone through a full feather moult. He's lost and replaced most if not all of his juvenile feathers, the gold tips have gone, the eye colour is paler, he's developed quite a dark chest band, and he looks to be a fuller shape and seems in good condition.

Blue UB is a year older than our two males, Dulas and Einion. He has most probably stayed in Africa for all of 2011 and will shortly be making his first journey back to Scotland as a two year old with the aim of building a nest of his own and attracting a female. We wish him and all our wintering ospreys every success.

A big thanks to Keith, Hazel, John, and Pip for sharing their encounters with Blue UB with us - the wonders of bird ringing never cease to amaze.