The Scottish Ospreys from extinction to survival by Philip Brown

After many months of reading this thread I finally went ahead and purchased “The Scottish Ospreys from extinction to survival” through Abebooks (£7.50 – Near perfect condition). I already own 3 Osprey books: The Return of the Osprey – Brown & Waterston (1962), Ospreys - Dennis (1991) & A life of Ospreys – Dennis (2008). The first point I want to make is that if you’ve looking to start your Osprey Library, this book is not the place to start! Don’t be confused by us focusing on the old title here, get Roy Dennis’s “Bible” “A Life of Ospreys” which will provide far more up to date information & in my opinion is also better written & laid out.

As nobody has reviewed or described the book I hope that nobody will mind me giving a quick résumé as well as my thoughts. The book is mostly divided into 3 sections; a bit of a biography on Ospreys, a chapter on the History of the extinction of Ospreys in Scotland & finally the majority of the book on the return of the Osprey in the years leading up to their first successful breeding.

I found the book itself a combination of enjoyable, fascinating & frustrating! The first chapter probably provides fewer details on the biology of Ospreys than Brown & Waterston’s earlier 1962 book & certainly not a patch on the recent book by Roy Dennis. The book probably could have been written in the early 60’s as it doesn’t provide any “current” (1979) information. It would have been interesting to have more insight into the Osprey knowledge of 1979 we certainly get plenty of information on the 1950’s/60’s knowledge in the later chapters & it would has been fascinating to have learnt how this had developed over the intervening 20 years & how far they were from current understanding by ’79.

I found the second half of the extirpation chapter very interesting & easy to read but felt that the first half became a little boring and just reproduced the accounts of Charles St John. I found George Waterston’s Chapter in the 1962 book a far more interesting & better written read.

The book comes into it’s own from Chapter 3 where Brown starts to detail to rediscovery of Osprey’s in Scotland (I won’t say return!!) and the actions of Nethersole-Thompson, Waterston, Brown & others in their protection. I found it well written & it’s here that I found many fascinating facts both about their understanding of Ospreys in the late 1950’s & the actions taken to protect the nest sites in these years, that I hadn’t read previously. However I found it frustrating that the book published in 1979 effectively stops with the first successful breeding in 1959. Just 5 pages are devoted to the details & lowlights of the intervening years between the successful first breeding & the publication of the book, & I’m sure that there is at least one books worth fleshing out the details in the “Famous places, famous birds” chapter in “A life of Ospreys”. I’d certainly put a Pre-order in now!!

Overall I’d say that if you already have "A life of Ospreys" & want to discover more details on the lead up to the 1959 Loch Garten breeding get this book before the prices go too high.

I hope that this review will revive this thread and lead to more discussions/opinions on the book, whilst we haven’t got quite as much live action on screen!!

Well, I am a very happy bunny!!!!!!  ;-)

Yesterday, I had a lovely surprise!  My book arrived!!!!!  ;-)  Far too early for a Christmas present to myself, so I'll be settling in to read it as soon as my hay fever settles in to the extent where outside work becomes unbearable.  To add even more to the surprise, the parcel front was almost covered in a varied selection of low denomination, properly franked, postage stamps.  Thes not only looked VERY pretty, but have already been snaffled by the stamp collector of the family!!!!

Wattle   That is great news. I look forward to hearing about what you think of it.

Vespa   Thank you very much for that review. I was hoping that everyone would write something similar but it seems that you are alone in having done so.

So has anyone else managed to read this wondeful book over the winter?

TIGER i am now on my second reading

sunshine said:

TIGER i am now on my second reading

Well I have read it a number to times. Sometimes to take my mind over other things.

I am not sure I will ever know exactly when I bought my first copy but it was probably 30 years ago in a few weeks time.

I read it back in August when I first received it, thoroughly enjoyed it, and feel that both this book and Roy Dennis's Life of Ospreys are books that could be picked up at any time and opened at any page because all the facts were interesting.  

Two copies gone in the last few days. I know who got one. I wonder who got the other?

So Jag how is the reading getting on?