Glen “The Hitchhiking Osprey” from Scotland triggers search parties and a police investigation…

Glen the GPS tagged osprey from the Tweed Valley has defied death yet again.

After his escapades hitching boat trips in the Bay of Biscay, and following a lengthy sojourn in northern Spain, last week Glen started heading south, entering Portugal, following a similar track that he had taken on a reconnaissance journey the previous week.

Stopping at a couple of places en route during the week, he ended up on Friday 25^th November seemingly perched on the roof of a fruit factory near the Atlantic coast between Nazaré and Péniche. His GPS signal indicated that he had arrived there between 7.30am to 7.50am.

Di Bennet of the Tweed Valley Osprey Project and members of the Flight of the Osprey expedition who have been constantly monitoring Glen’s movements, became alarmed when following that signal there was no further signal and no movement at all.

After closer investigation it was discovered that there were a lot of high voltage electric fences around the fruit crops, and potentially dangerous pylons in the area -  which gave even greater cause for concern.

By Saturday afternoon there was still no movement and worryingly the GPS battery dropped to 43% indicating it might be under cover and the solar panel was not charging. It was thought this could have been because Glen was on the ground or his corpse had been picked up and brought inside.

At this stage it was beginning to look as if Glen had perished. Efforts were made to contact the fruit factory, and a number of Conservation Without Borders expert partners set about trying to find him. The local police also sent out a search party. Nothing was found and it was decided to resume the search on Monday when the factory would be open.

Glen “rises from the dead” and undertakes an epic sea journey

After GPS tracker silence of nearly 2 days, on Sunday mid-morning Glen’s tracker suddenly came alive and revealed that he had made a gigantic Atlantic sea journey from the docks at Péniche in Portugal to the Moroccan mainland where he made landfall at the Baie de Khnifiss Biological Reserve. This happily is an internationally important Ramsar site with an abundance of fish.

Di Bennett from the Tweed Valley Osprey Project / Forestry and Land Scotland said

“We became concerned about Glen when the tracker stopped sending back data. His tracker has been reliable for the past three months sending regular information from Spain and Portugal. With no signal from a good GPS area we thought that he had been injured – or worse collided and died at the fruit farm.

It was great that the Flight of the Osprey team and other volunteers jumped in to act quickly - just in case we could have saved him if injured - or at least recovered a corpse for post mortem and retrieved the tracker. 

He surprised us all when his tracker pinged back data from Morocco, and showed that he had not continued further south through Portugal before crossing the sea but had gone west – thus the GPS signal was lost as he was out at sea very soon after leaving the fruit farm”

Glen has demonstrated astonishing endurance in completing an epic 36 hour nonstop flight from Portugal. On landing he appears to have rested on the ground for about 50 minutes before flying further south where he stopped at a pylon in the desert for several hours to recover. There are very few trees in the area and this would be a much safer place to rest than on the ground.

Glens astonishing journey

Sacha Dench, founder of Conservation Without Borders who is leading the Flight of the Osprey Expedition Team through Khnifiss in Africa and following Glens’ track closely said

“Glen was flapping his wings solidly for 36 hours – that’s just amazing for a young osprey to do. Looking at the wind directions when he left Portugal he narrowly escaped being blown out to sea when the wind pattern changed to his advantage.

The GPS also reveals some other remarkable facts. Just after leaving Portugal he was flying at speeds of over 50km an hour at around 220 metres above sea level. He then went up as high as nearly 700 metres when he had great tail winds, but later in the journey and at nights got as low as 7 metres which I guess was due to fatigue.

He passed close to Lanzarote but had managed to gain enough height again so could probably see the coast of Morocco and pressed on to the mainland. He struck lucky by hitting landfall close to a small and rare desert oasis known as Khnifiss where he slept for 11 hours before setting off to find fish.

Ospreys that have learned the migration route usually cross the sea at the Strait of Gibraltar for the shortest possible sea crossing. But Glen is an adventurer and seems to escape the many tough situations he gets into and surprise us all!

The most incredible thing is the amount of information we are getting from his journey data and through the increasing number of people getting involved.

One of the main objectives of our expedition is to engage as many people as possible – from local communities to big corporates and energy companies. The interest in Glen is definitely raising awareness of the need to discuss our influence on nature in a collaborative way”

Geemeff , a social media volunteer at Conservation Without Borders and osprey enthusiast said of her personal feelings surrounding the assumed loss over the weekend:

“During those bleak 48 hours I was constantly checking the data, setting alarms to check through the night but after 48 hours of thinking Glen was gone, I fell asleep then awoke with a start and out of habit checked again - and saw a picture of sand!

I zoomed out and saw his tracker active in Morocco but still didn't believe it until I double-checked and confirmed with Di Bennet at the Tweed Valley Osprey Project.

What a rollercoaster ride it is for Osprey watchers - hard to fall in love then think you've lost them.. and sheer elation when they pop up again! Hard on the nerves but I wouldn't change it for anything!”