• Blue 4K(13) continues to make good progress.  

    He is now making his way along west coast of France

  • Thanks, everyone, for pics and posts. Great that Wonky Wing's son is back fishing at River Gwash and that Glesni's nephew, 4K(13), is well on the way back to Rutland. Apologies but I have forgotten, were we ever told if he has ever had his own nest or if he has been one of the many bachelors hanging around the Rutland area nests?
  • There was an interesting on-line article from the ITV Anglia, published yesterday.  Twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the translocation project.  There is also a brilliant video from ITV News Anglia which covered the reintroduction of the ospreys at Rutland in 1996.  Does anyone know anything about Red 12?

  • Thanks Sheila, always good to see historical footage. I was a bit surprised to hear the narrator say Maya 'because she came from Scotland was never ringed'. Eh?? I doubt they have any idea where she came from!?

    EDIT!! I've just found this on Rutland's website; 'The osprey nest in Manton Bay has been in use since 2007 by different osprey pairings, but has been occupied since 2010 by the same female bird - an unringed Scottish female, nicknamed 'Maya'.

    How do they know she's from Scotland?

    I found this on a Rotary Club website;

    'Volunteer guide Paul Stammers explained that he had used the first and last two letters from the location MAnton bAY and arranged them in honour of a goddess of fertility!'

    If I ever knew that, I'd forgotten

  • SheilaFE said:
    Does anyone know anything about Red 12?

    I'm ploughing through Tim Mackrill's Rutland Water Osprey book but can't find a reference to Red12  - not mentioned as one of the key birds. I'll keep hunting.

    I found this page from the Rutland project itself which details the various translocation years. Makes an interesting reference to an osprey with a red ring seen in Northern Ireland.But it looks like all 1996 translocated birds had red rings

  • Karen, you follow this nest closely. Can you solve the Maya/Scotland mystery please?
  • Unknown said:
    Karen, you follow this nest closely. Can you solve the Maya/Scotland mystery please?

    MIKE is also red hot on Rutland, having been closely involved for many years Relaxed 

  • Korky, I imagine that the statement that Maya is a Scottish bird is because Scotland has far more nests than any other part of the UK and the chicks in huge numbers of those Scottish nests are never ringed (and that is for several different reasons--unknown location of nests or inaccessible nests or nests in extremely remote areas, and there may possibly be a lack of enough trained ringers such that there may not be enough qualified people to ring even all of the chicks in the known and accessible nests within the very short time period in which chicks can safely be ringed, etc.). Hence it seems logical that most of the unringed Ospreys in the UK are most likely birds which have hatched and fledged somewhere in Scotland. There is also the extremely remote but possible chance that Maya is Scandinavian or possibly even German, but her being from Scotland is far more likely.
  • Thanks GB for your well-reasoned thoughts. I agree it's a distinct possibility but it's a bit of a bold statement to put so definitively. Had Maya arrived with a tartan necklace or carrying a haggis I might have been more convinced.