A history-making osprey may have come to harm on a marathon home migration, experts fear.
It is hoped the two-year-old, Blue YD, has simply dropped off the radar because of a technical fault with its satellite tag but it is feared he may be dead.
The osprey was the first recorded chick born in Angus and was tagged by the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) in a painstaking operation in 2012.
SWT experts were then able to track the bird’s flight to Senegal in west Africa, where it had remained until a couple of months ago.
Blue YD was only the second two-year-old osprey to have been recorded on a return migration three years old is the norm but excitement has now turned to anxiety after his satellite signal went dead.
The tracker was working until late May, by which time Blue YD had covered more than 12,000 miles and was in the vicinity of North Yorkshire National Park.
In her latest osprey tracking blog, SWT ranger Emma Rawlings said Blue YD had shown nothing to suggest he was in trouble.
“The bird was doing well up until the last transmission and there was no information in the data to indicate he was struggling or slowing down,” she said.
“This leaves us with two possibilities: that something sudden and catastrophic has happened to our bird and his tag at the same time eg being shot down or caught and the tag destroyed by a person or that the tag has simply reached its maximum life and ceased working.
“It is so frustrating to know that Blue YD was only the second young osprey that has been tracked back to the UK with this method, and now so close to home, we lose track of him.”