An Osprey flying over France with a blue ring on her right leg—that was what Stéphane Mikaelis photographed on March 11, 2025. The bird was seen flying north (with a nice meal in her claws, see photo above), not far from the lac du Der in the French department of the Meuse. Fortunately her colour ring was readable: F11. Also known as Pistache, F11 is a female born in Norway and translocated to Switzerland on 5 July 2018. After being raised in the aviaries at Bellechasse and then released on 14 August, she left on migration on 8 September, 2018. Almost seven years had passed with no news of her, until we received the amazing photo from Stéphane. The discovery of Pistache brings the number of known returnees in Europe to 12, which corresponds to a rate of 19.4%, very good for a project of this type.

It is well known that male Osprey are very philopatric, almost always coming back to breed in the region where they first fledged. Females, on the other hand, usually move to another population to find a partner. Was Pistache on her way to the important Osprey population in eastern Germany, where another of our females released the same year, Plume (F02), had already been observed breeding?

In any case, 2018 was a very special year, as that was also when our male Arthur (F12) was released – and he has been returning to Switzerland every year since 2020. While it shouldn’t be long until the first Osprey of the season are seen in Switzerland, we are holding our breath to see him back again this spring!