Just received good news that one of the translocated Scottish ospreys laid its first egg on 5th May at a new nest in Odiel Marshes in Spain. Blue 18 was a female chick collected from a nest on Forestry Commission land in Glen Afric on 7th July 2009 – she was the smallest chick in the nest. I translocated her with 6 other young Scottish ospreys to Spain, under a SNH licence. She was released from the hacking cages at Odiel Marshes on 23rd July 2009, as part of the Andalucia Osprey Reintroduction Project. She then spent 41 days living free in the Marismas del Odiel Natural Park near Huelva, including taking fish from the feeding platforms, before migrating to Africa on 2nd September 2009. Jose Sayago and Teresa Ramirez of the Marismas del Odiel Natural Park, who monitor ospreys there, saw her as a non-breeder in summer of 2014, but this year she has mated with a local bred two year old male from the reintroduced population and built a nest on nest box pole in the marshes. The project to restore breeding opreys to Spain started in 2004 and involved young ospreys from Germany, Finland and Scotland; the first translocated birds to breed were in 2009 when a German male from 2005 and a Scottish female, which I collected in 2005, reared three young. In 2009, 7 young ospreys were translocated from Scotland to Spain and four of them, including Blue 18, have now been seen back in Spain.
Blue 18 and mate on new nest Odiel Photo J. Sayago
Blue 18 on perch near nest Photo J.Sayago
