An osprey that was the first recorded chick born in Angus has been found in west Africa almost two years after its tag stopped transmitting its location.

Scottish Wildlife Trust staff were thrilled to discover the osprey, known as Blue YD, had turned up in Lompoul sur Mer, western Senegal, about 3,000 miles away.

The three-year-old male bird was tagged with a lightweight satellite tracker in July 2012 at one of the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s reserves near Forfar.

It was spotted by staff and volunteers from the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, which runs the Rutland Osprey Project.

The Rutland team has been visiting the region since 2011 as part of their Osprey Flyways Project, which aims to educate African school children on osprey migration.

During this year’s trip, the team travelled to Lompoul sur Mer to locate another satellite-tagged female bird from Rutland known as 30(05). They spotted Blue YD on a 30km stretch of white sandy beach where around 100 ospreys spend their winters.

Since the tag stopped transmitting in May 2014, the project has relied on very occasional eye-witness reports of Blue YD's travels, which have placed him at various times in North Yorkshire, St Andrews and now Senegal, where he will spend the winter months.

Rab Potter, the Scottish Wildlife Trust's reserves manager for north east Scotland, said: "Ospreys are a wonderful conservation success story.

"Once extinct in the UK, there are now around 240 breeding pairs in the UK thanks to the efforts of nature conservation charities like the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust.

"But for such a high-profile species, there’s still an awful lot we don’t know. That's why satellite tagging is so important - because it helps us get a better insight into the lives, migration routes and behaviours of these magnificent birds."

John Wright, Field Officer for the Rutland Osprey Project, said: “This is the second visit I've made to Lompoul sur Mer and both times I've counted around one hundred ospreys consisting of many German and Scottish birds. It was fantastic to see that Blue YD was alive and well.

"He’ll no doubt be enjoying the final few weeks of warmth before he makes his way back to the UK for the breeding season at the end of March.”

Jonathan Pinnick, assistant manager at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Loch of the Lowes Visitor Centre, said: "It’s wonderful to learn more about the life of a bird that we have followed since it was a fledgling and it shows the value of tagging in allowing us to track the life history of individual birds.

"Perhaps he will be spotted back in Angus this summer, hopefully breeding and helping the continued recovery of the osprey population in Scotland."