The Poole Harbour Osprey Translocation for 2017-2018

For years people have been asking when the next British osprey translocation will happen, it  being over 20 years since the one at Rutland began. 

On 20th June 2017 we finally got to know that it is to be to  Poole Harbour  and what exciting news that was. To complement this Roy Dennis has also opened a new Facebook page called  Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation

They  are looking for 200 people to become conservation champions  for a minimum donation of  £250 each. All donations are welcome. 

The project is a partnership between the Foundation, local charity Birds of Poole Harbour, and Poole based-business Wildlife Windows and is part of a wider conservation recovery plan of osprey in Western Europe and the Mediterranean region which was recently commissioned by the Council of Europe and authored by Roy Dennis. 

This is such exciting news that will keep people interested for the rest of our lives. 

  • The wife and I are on holiday in September near the Hampshire/Dorset border and are looking forward to going to Poole Harbour in the hope of seeing one of these, now becoming famous birds. :-)  

    Regards Shane

     

    My Photos in Flickr.

  • Shane said:

    The wife and I are on holiday in September near the Hampshire/Dorset border and are looking forward to going to Poole Harbour in the hope of seeing one of these, now becoming famous birds. :-)  

    Better make it early September or they will all be gone.

  • I was going to post along similar lines Tiger.

    This is the latest post on the Poole Harbour site.

    "The Osprey chicks are doing really well with some guzzling food back like there’s no tomorrow! Our team now has a flowing process which sees the birds fed 3 times a day, with food that’s to be eaten as well as un-eaten weighed out so we can gage how much the birds are taking on board. The coming weeks will see us providing the chicks with as much food as they need as to get them in peak condition, ready for fledging. We still don’t know when that will be just yet but the end of July/beginning of August is a good benchmark. We’ll try and get some video footage from the pens shortly so we can introduce you to each of the 8 chicks. We were hoping to take photographs and provide a profile for each bird when they arrived but it was raining so hard that we just wanted to get them into the safety and security of their pens as quickly as possible.

     

  • ...and a bit more.

    "Osprey Translocation update

    Not much change today, all birds doing well with LS4 eating a whopping 23 pieces of fish in 8 minutes! "

    Anyone bet this is a Female?

  • LOL!! - great news that things are going so well.

  • Mike B said:

    Latest update with a short video clip.. Scroll down to find the update and the video.

    Thank you Mike. Translocations are in your blood! :) 

  • This update is dated 17/7 but it was not there this morning.

    "

    Harbour Update - posted 17/07/17

    We can’t believe the osprey chicks have been with us a week already and to see the change in their size, structure and behaviour in such a short space of time has been amazing. We don’t want to count our chickens before they hatch but each of the eight has really taken to Dorset life. It’s certainly been a lot warmer this last week and compared to what they’ve been used to up in Scotland so as long as we’re not turning them into southern ‘beach bum’ softies we’re on course for a late July release. LS0 has began fly-hopping around its pen and today even took off for a very short while all the others are still wolfing down food and are visibly getting stronger by the day. With slightly unsettled weather approaching from the south in the coming days a nice bit of the ‘wet stuff’ my bring them back down to earth with a bump after a week of sun, sea and salmon."

  • Harbour Update - posted 18/07/17

    With a dark rumbling sky approaching from the south it looked like we were about to experience our first drop rain for a whole week, and sure enough by 7pm the wind had built and the rain had begun, but it wasn’t until around midnight the real light show kicked off. Our first concern was the Osprey chicks and how they’d fare but you soon remember that these are wild birds who have to put up with all sorts out in the depths of wildest Scotland, and sure enough a 5:30am check on site for the first feed saw them all right as rain (and wet as rain too) eager for their next feed. Such hardy birds as well beautiful. LS0 is definitely the most advanced and is now flapping/flying from nest, to perching stump to perching bar showing real character and passion to explore its new area. That’s not to say it doesn’t often spend large parts of the day lounging about with legs stretched out as if playing the part of an ‘extra’ in Baywatch! We’ll be receiving some more footage from our CCTV monitoring system and will embed it on our sightings blog over the coming the days. In the mean time, enjoy these additional photos we’ve received from Ruth Peacey who helped out when the birds arrived last week.

    I seem to recall that Ruth Peacey covered the excellent work that Chris Packham did in Malta a couple of years ago.

    Birdie's DU Summaries 2018   https://www.imagicat.com/