We’ve have had an incredibly busy few days here in the Scottish Highlands monitoring osprey nests, ringing the young and collecting ospreys for translocation projects. In the last month we had some pretty awful weather including downpours in the first week in June; afterwards we found that two broods of young had died from exposure and lack of fish. Careful monitoring in late June showed me that most pairs were active and had young.
Our team came together on Thursday with Tim and me on fieldwork, our ace tree climbers Ian and Fraser; Emily took on fish preparation and feeding duties, helped by my 8 year old daughter Phoebe, Aitor arrived from Bilbao and Moira held the fort and produced great meals and hospitality. Our first day was Thursday – 7 am to 9:30 pm, 340 miles round trip to Caithness and Sutherland meeting old and new friends, collecting five young ospreys, identifying some old breeding adults from their colour rings and a lovely view of an adder.
Friday was the sort of day I dread – it rained overnight and we experienced on-and-off drizzle and Scotch mist throughout the day. Nevertheless we collected 6 young in east Moray and at two nests the male birds had been having trouble catching enough fish and one chick was well below weight. So removing a sibling resulted in saving the other. Once the chicks were in their compartments in my garage, with the other young, they were soon eating fresh trout, courtesy of Rothiemurchus fishery. Next day we visited Badenoch & Strathspey and nests near my home and our total climbed to 15.
Checking chicks at a nest in Caithness
Sunday saw our last day of visits. One nest was an epic climb for Ian up a great Douglas fir and my tele-photos of the ospreys overhead showed the female was different to 2016. It was white ring PE – my old friend Morven which I caught and satellite tagged in 2008 – she winters on the Mauritania coast and her stop over is in an estuary in North Spain. Now one of her chicks will be released not far away near Bilbao. This is her third different nest – I guess she moved this spring because her old mate did not return until 2nd May and she got fed up waiting! At our next nest we found that one of young was entangled in baler wrap collected from the field as nest material by the male. I cut it off – if we had not visited the nest for a ringing it would’ve died. Not the first time I’ve seen this.
Expert tree climber Ian reaches another nest.
Careful consideration is given before selecting chicks for translocation.
Morven (white/black PE) circling over her nest – one of her chicks will be translocated to the Basque Country.
That gave us twelve chicks for the Basque country project at Urdaibai estuary near Bilbao and as I write Aitor and the young ospreys are at Heathrow en route to Spain. This is the completion of the translocation part of our project; five years and 60 young. It was great to learn of the first pair established at a nest this summer, as well as 6 males in North Spain and another in France. In two hours time the other eight ospreys will be taken by Tim and Emily to Poole Harbour, where Paul and Jason have the new accommodation, hacking cages, all organised. A very exciting new project, with the team in Dorset, to restore breeding ospreys to the south coast estuaries; we can say then that the “mullet hawk” has truly returned.
A brood of three young ospreys. The bird on the right will be translocated to Poole.
It’s a real privilege to work on these projects and as I say, in present-day jargon, our principal stakeholder is the osprey itself – that’s why we take such care of them. And then there is the support and friendship with so many people to make these projects work including Jane, Robert, Duncan, Brian, Derry, Alan, Malcolm, Mike, Pete, Ben, Gabriella, Jason and Paul.
The osprey collection team 2017 (Aitor, Ian, Roy, Moira, Phoebe, Emily and Tim) (photo by Mike Crutch)
