Martyn Fielder, a keen birder and avid follower of the Dyfi ospreys, lives in Dakar, Senegal. He's just around 25 miles north of where Einion has been calling home for the last few months - the Somone Lagoon Reserve. This is where Roy Dennis finally managed to track Einion down on Autumnwatch recently. Martyn too has been a few times to try and catch a glimpse of Einion and on his second attempt managed to see him. He sent us this report a couple of weeks ago:

"Following Einion’s brief excursion to Sine Saloum I can confirm that on Saturday morning at about 11am he was sitting on a mangrove root on the north side of his favourite mangrove patch, eating a fish of some sort. My guide assumed it was a mullet. I’d hired a boat and had already seen many ospreys by the time we came across Einion, including one that dived successfully for a fish – I’d never seen that before.

I don’t know how many I’d seen, but 10 would be a conservative estimate of the number in Somone. I was actually changing the battery in my camera when I spotted a bird on a root just a few inches above the water, and whenever he bent down to eat, the radio antenna was clearly visible above his back. It has acquired a slight kink. He had a blue ring on his right leg but I was unable to read it – I only have 8x25 binoculars. We watched for a few minutes while I frantically tried to get one of my batteries to work, but to no avail. We then went on an unsuccessful search for someone with a camera and by the time we got back Einion had gone. However I was very happy to have finally tracked him down."

How frustrating that the battery gave up just when he needed it most! Here's a photo that Martyn sent, not of Einion, but another osprey just before the battery died.

Male, adult osprey in the Somone Lagoon Reserve. © Martyn Fielder

Since Martyn's trip, Einion has been on a trip of his own, and not just on a day-return this time. Early on December 3rd he flew north, past Dakar, and followed the beach up towards St. Louis near Leri's last transmission. After roosting there for the night, he then decided to head directly south and by the evening of the 4th he had flown over the Sine Saloum Delta where he had visited briefly a few weeks earlier. By the next day he had flown yet further south and over the mouth of the great Gambia River and was at the popular Tanji Beach at 4pm. Our colleagues at Rutland Water visited here on one of their African osprey trips.

Tanji beach wasn't for Einion though and he soon headed back north to the Sine Saloum Delta to roost on the evening of the 5th before finally deciding to return to Somone Lagoon early the following day. He took four days in all to cover around 350 miles. With his journey transposed onto a map of the UK with Birmingham being the Somone Lagoon, he flew north to around the Manchester area before flying to the south coast of England before returning to Birmingham on day four.

We are learning so much about the ecology and behaviour of juvenile ospreys with this tracker project. Both Dulas and Einion seem to have set up a 'home range' at a favourite location, but are starting to take regular and longer trips spanning a few hundred miles, only to return a few days later. Maybe we should think of these home ranges as 'bankers' - an area where the ospreys are comfortable with and are guaranteed a good stock of fish without too much competition. The exploratory trips to other areas may prove useful in future, leaner times, if conditions deteriorate due to a long dry season, for example.

A big thanks to Martyn for his regular Einion reports - take a spare battery next time mate!