Founder of the Highland Foundation for Wildlife, Professor Roy Dennis, who ringed Logie and charted her incredible journey on his special website this year, said there has been no signal for nearly two weeks from the bird, which has raised chicks at Logie for the past five years.

On his website which he updates daily, Prof Dennis said that although people are watching out for Logie, there was no sign yet and said that the two chicks who started their migration journey last week were struggling against bad weather.

Logie was named by children at Logie Primary School after she was fitted with a special transmitter which gives a GPS signal to pinpoint her location. The youngsters followed her migration journey to Senegal and back to Forres as a class project last year, and Mr Dennis visited them at the school.

Head teacher Morven Snodgrass said the youngsters were sad to learn that the most recent signal from Logie was received on August 21, when she was somewhere near the Tomintoul area, but there has been nothing since that time.

"They were very quiet when Roy told them," she said. "We lost a chick which they had named during last year's migration, but we are hoping this is just a transmitter failure."

There was much interest in Logie after she arrived home to her old nest after her epic journey when she had to fight for it with an intruder female which had moved in a week earlier and was even trying to strike up a romance with Logie's mate. A battle above the skies declared Logie the winner.

Ornithologists say there is a certain amount of irony in the fact that she survived the migration, battled for her home, raised two young and started her migration journey back again, but vanished just a few miles away.

Mr Dennis was originally under the impression that the lack of signal from the osprey was due to the bad weather as the transmitter would be unable to get a proper charge, with no sunlight to power the solar battery.

However, he became worried and when he hiked to the actual spot where Logie was last known to be, he found absolutely no sign of her, to suggest that something had befallen her.

"It's a mystery," he said. "The options are transmitter failure, because she has been in a location with no sun, or that the transmitter has suffered a fault, or very sadly, that she has died and is in a place where the transmitter's solar panel is hidden from the sun."

Logie's chicks are battling against difficult weather conditions during their migratory journey.

Mr Dennis said that taking the optimistic view, he had e-mailed contacts to ask them to keep an eye open for Logie at her last year's haunts.

"Maybe she is already at one of her old haunts and her transmitter is not working," he said. "Her colour ring is a white ring with black AN on the left leg and the transmitter aerial would be visible on her back. Please e-mail if you see her. Keeping fingers crossed that she is now in a sunny location so her transmitter is charging and we will get news of her location."

Meantime, Logie's two chicks, which fledged from their nest a few weeks ago, were battling against the elements on their own migration journey. Professor Dennis said that the pair, had probably left their nest too early and should have stayed a while younger.

The chicks were named Glen and Moray by the Logie Primary youngsters live on air on a BBC radio programme last week, and as they have already been ringed, their progress is being tracked on the website.

"The youngsters were very excited to be involved in the project again," said Miss Snodgrass. "They named the chicks live on air for the programme and are looking forward to following their journey on the website."

The chicks hatched in the middle of June and were ringed on July 24. The pair flew for the first time at the beginning of August and left last week, one heading towards Deeside and the other towards Laurencekirk. But by Monday morning one was off course in the Isle of Syke and the other was near Tyndrum.

Meantime, two females, including the intruder female – have also been caught and ringed. One of them, Beatrice, who was named after an oil field operated by project sponsors Talisman Energy who supply the satellite tracking system, has started to migrate, and had passed over the French and Spanish border at the Pyrenees, and was heading towards Madrid.

Meantime, Morven, who spent days flying between her nest and Caithness had started her migration and was at Corby near Northamptonshire by Monday. For further information on Professor Roy Dennis work and the Highland Foundation for Wildlife, visit the website: www.roydennis.org

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