Last Friday's BBC Autumnwatch programme marked the end of the Dyfi osprey set of films, and what an end it was. Having followed the young ospreys from when they were literally just a few minutes old on Springwatch in June, what a fitting finalé we had when Roy Dennis, the maestro conservationist with over 50 years experience with ospreys, finally managed to track Einion down with just moments left before heading back for the airport and home.

For the last 100 years, bird ringing has taught us so much about avian behaviour and migration. The information we learn can then be applied and help us protect those birds. Satellite tracking is a very new science and the technology has only been around for the last few years, but it has already started to give us information we could only dream and guess about just 10 years ago. Migration routes, journey times, altitudes, speed, stop-over points and, of course, wintering areas. Did you see the faces of those three African guides on the boat with Roy when they found Einion?

Satellite tracking opens up new doors. We can link people that live thousands of miles from each other and through education, learning, and working together, can ultimately better conserve and protect ospreys and other animals. The Rutland Water team have already began an ambitious West African Project doing exactly this, engaging with people and schools in Gambia and Senegal, sharing the information learnt with each other.

This photograph (above) is of the Glaslyn female osprey in north Wales collecting nest material at the beginning of the breeding season in 2005. We in the UK are used to seeing large birds of prey being continually mobbed by other birds. Here the osprey is under attack by gulls and crows, which is a very common occurrence.

It was absolutely incredible to see on last Friday's Autumnwatch the exact opposite behaviour - interspecies altruism. This is one species cooperating with, or 'helping' out another, different species. A Gull was soliciting food from an adult female osprey and the osprey was filmed literally allowing the Gull to take fish parcels from her beak. This altruistic species-to-species behaviour is extremely rare in wild animals and has only ever been observed in a handful of cases, mostly within Chimpanzee and human interaction studies. Roy said on the film that he had never heard of, read, or seen this kind of osprey interspecies altruism before, and that's in a lifetime of working with ospreys!

A snapshot of that astonishing behaviour between a female osprey and a Slender-billed Gull, captured by the BBC on last Friday's Autumnwatch

Satellite tracking continues to amaze and teach us about nature. The Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust would like to thank all those parties involved in making all this happen.

You can learn more about Roy's work with his Highland Foundation for Wildlife here, our Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust work here, and Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust's work and their West Africa Project here.