Today is the 1st of November and while the outlook for Leri does not look good, there are a few reasons for cautious optimism. Leri's activity readings are showing that the tracker has not moved for several days, yet we recently received three days worth of data (October 27th - 29th) indicating that she, or at least the tracker, has in fact moved - albeit only a few hundred meters. Therefore, we have two conflicting and contradictory streams of information being sent back from Leri's satellite transmitter.

On October 24th Leri started to move south from where she had been for the last few weeks, on a tributary of the the Senegal River. Had this tributary started to dry up? By the evening of the 24th she had reached the northern most of three narrow strips of water called the Three Marigots. It's from the following day, October 25th, that her transmitter started to send back worrying data.

On Sunday October 30th, our friend Frédéric Bacuez, an ornithologist based in St. Louis, Senegal, went looking for Leri on the western side of the of the first lake. He has given us permission to re-print the email we received a few hours ago including the photographs he sent. Here is the email:

Hi,
We went yesterday (sun very hot...) in the area: we did'nt see any body or something of Leri or any injured osprey, we could not go in the south of Mengueye lake by the way we took...: just seeing near an nearest lake before 3  ospreys (1 male, 2 females, juveniles I think). We saw also fillets of line hooks in the water... The only dead birds were two grey herons killed by eagles (we saw one booted eagle near a body) or african fish eagle who like grey heron in addition of the fishes... See on the pics of  2 ospreys.

We decide to go to the lake where Leri seems to live on next Thursday morning. If you have new localisations, send me before thursday.

It is impossible that an animal carrying Leri in the surrounders; impossible again for a boat, too small water level ! You know, all the ospreys we saw on sunday in the area didnt move a lot: in this season, there are so many fishes in the swamps, so easy to catch for the ospreys ! The problem for the juveniles is just to find the good area without aggressive adult... 
Regards. Frédéric.

Frédéric also sent two photographs, here's the first one showing one of the ospreys he saw perching on the ground:

Here's the other image showing an osprey in the area we last have GPS data for Leri.

The Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust would like to send our heartfelt gratitude and thanks to Frédéric for all his help in trying to find Leri for us. Merci beaucoup.

Frédéric asked us to credit the images he kindly sent - 'Ornithondar, photo Rozenn Le Roux'. Frédéric's website can be found here.

If you have any thoughts on Leri, please let us know.