I’M OFFSPREY
Bird of prey hitches ride on ship in record 4000-mile trip
A young osprey ditched Scotland for the Caribbean after hitching a ride across the Atlantic from passing ships.
Experts say the bird – which only hatched last summer – may never come home.
The female bird, who doesn’t have a name, left its nest at the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park at Lochwinnoch last August and is believed to have arrived in Barbados in October having left via southern Ireland.
But it was only formally identified a few weeks ago on the Caribbean island.
Dr Tim Mackrill, ornithologist at Moray’s Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, said: “It’s an amazing story. As far as we are aware, this is the first time that a UK osprey has been recorded on that side of the Atlantic.”
The osprey had been fitted with a bluecoloured leg ring “KW0” by volunteers with the Clyde Ringing Group on June 23 last year, about two months before it left Scotland on its first migration.
It was recorded by Barbados-based birder Michael St John at Bawdens Irrigation Pond in the north of the island.
Dr Mackrill said yesterday the osprey may have flown so far it will struggle to return to Scotland as expected next year and opt to join migratory North American ospreys that fly through the Caribbean each winter.
He said: “It is 4124 miles from Clyde
Muirshiel to Barbados. This is the kind of distance that many ospreys from northern Europe migrate each year – what makes this record amazing is the fact that the vast majority of the journey is across the Atlantic Ocean.”
The Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation is regularly contacted about sightings of Scottish ospreys abroad, with Barbados being its most remarkable.
The bird is thought to have flown 3800 miles across the Atlantic from Ireland, landing on ships to break up the flight.
Dr Mackrill said: “It is highly unlikely that even an osprey could have completed this in a single flight, even with strong tailwinds, so it is probable she took the opportunity to rest on boats, which may have been travelling to the Caribbean from the UK.
“KW0 must have departed on migration in exceptional condition to have survived this remarkable transatlantic crossing.”
KW0 is thought to have been first observed in Barbados in October but its identity was not confirmed until now.
Dr Mackrill said: “Having spent at least four-and-a-half months in Barbados, KW0 is clearly very settled and may well remain there. Young ospreys usually remain on the wintering grounds for the whole of their second calendar year.”