2025 Ospreys

 

2025 Ospreys

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I haven’t looked at all the UK sites, but this year seems to be a better year for Ospreys than 2024. The Loch Arkaig pair, Louis and Dorcha, hatched three eggs, but one chick perished, cause unknown. The remaining two osplets look healthy and vigorous.

In Manton Bay, in Rutland, the nest site has been occupied each year by the same female, Maya, since 2010. An experienced parent, she has raised four chicks this year, with the mate she has had since 2015.

The Poole Harbour ospreys have also successfully raised four chicks, but at Loch of the Lowes, both eggs were lost, predated by crows. The breeding pair here was inexperienced.

When the birds depart in August or September for their winter grounds, they do not retain their pair bond. The siblings do not maintain family connections, either. When or if the adults return in March or April, they will go back to their familiar sites and resume their relationship.

Osprey chicks or Osplets, five weeks old

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

About 70% of osplets will not survive to the age of three, when ospreys start breeding. However, there are now about three hundred breeding pairs in UK, a huge recovery from the extinction they suffered in the 1880s. The first ospreys to return to Scotland arrived from Scandinavia in the 1950s and numbers have gradually increased.

Ospreys are still rarer than Golden Eagles.

Update on Loch Arkaig Ospreys

 

Update on Loch Arkaig Ospreys

                                            Five-week-old ospreys

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

For reasons beyond my control, I have not been watching the Loch Arkaig ospreys (hatched and reared by Louis and Dorcha) recently, but had an opportunity to catch up today.

The last time I looked, the third osplet, known as ‘bobs’ when very young, because their heads bobble and wobble about, died. It became very cold and wet and could not reach its mother for shelter. In addition, it was bullied and ragged by its older siblings, could not feed and died.

 Louis has been raising chicks since 2020, first with Alia, who failed to return in 2022, and latterly with Dorcha. Louis has always been a very good provider, bringing in several fish a day, but recently his performance has given cause for concern. There is no knowing whether he is ill or there is some other reason for his inability to feed his family. The growing six-week-old osplets need regular and larger feeds or they will fail.

Woodland Trust, which manages the nest webcam, became increasingly worried that the two healthy osplets might starve to death and so arranged for them to be relocated to Eastern Spain. It is not usual for them to intervene, but they decided it would serve no purpose to allow two strong chicks to die, so they were moved at the beginning of the month, on Monday 1^st July.

Spain is trying to reintroduce ospreys and is in the second year of a five-year project near Playa Santa-Ana. There is no guarantee of success, but at least the osplets will have a better chance of survival.

It has been a poor year for ospreys, the bad weather being a key factor, with many nests facing difficulties. The hope now is that Louis and Dorcha will be able to build up their strength, ready for Dorcha to migrate later this month or early in August.

Louis, if he has recovered, will follow in late August or early September. He is thought to be about 11. Around 70% of osplets do not survive to breeding age, at three. The oldest ospreys live to between 10 to 15 years, so Louis is reaching a grand age. The oldest recorded wild osprey lived to over 30.

Ospreys

 

Ospreys (Pandion Haliaetus)

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Ospreys migrate to UK from West Africa in late March and April in order to breed. These fish-eating birds, sometimes called sea hawks or river hawks, were hunted to extinction in the 1880s and also disappeared across much of Europe. Egg-collecting and taxidermy were the main contributors to their decline.

In the 1950s ospreys flying to Scandinavia began to arrive in Scotland, though it is not clear why. The first confirmed breeding was in 1954, the last having been 38 years earlier in 1916.

The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has been involved from the beginning in protecting nest sites and educating the public.

Slowly numbers have increased and from the start of the 21^st century ospreys have spread south and now breed in England and Wales. There are now thought to be 300 breeding pairs in the British Isles. The young birds are tagged and some have radio transmitters fitted so that they can be tracked on their journeys.

Ospreys carry the fish catch in one foot

For a few years now I have been watching osprey webcams, in Rutland, Poole, Loch Arkaig and Loch of the Lowes. I find the most informative one to be at Loch Arkaig, where there are two artificial nest platforms monitored day and night. There is a thriving community of dedicated osprey watchers at this site, adding their daily observations and often giving news of activity at other webcams. 

Loch of the Lowes has a viewing site from which visitors can see the birds.

The Rutland Water site already has two eggs in the nest, and the Poole Harbour nest has three eggs. Meanwhile, Loch Arkaig’s male awaits the return of his mate, while at Loch of the Lowes both male and female arrived on the same day.

Breeding pair on the nest. The female is larger than the male.

Watching the nests can be a nail-biting experience, for not every nest is successful and even in those that are, there is sibling rivalry and often death.