NEWS FROM OTHER NESTS - 2012

Hazel b said:

The ospreys are back at Seili and what a wonderful capture.

Val Gall has just confirmed on Twitter that her male (M) has returned to join her normal female (XL) at the nest she monitors

Rothiemurchus fishery blog:

rothieblog.net/.../the-ospreys-return-over-rothiemurchus

Apologies if these are already reported:

Wigtown Bay - nest has been occupied by Ravens - Ospreys seen but not nesting, and not identified: maybe just random birds passing through.

Caerlaverock - usual unringed female; new male (left leg, yellow 08 or similar - believed to be Scottish bird, 10 years old).  No sign of AW - the usual Wigtown-born male.

Interesting news from several directions.

I see that 'Mrs' at Bassenthwaite has shacked up with her son from 2007. Incest seems to be one of the themes for 2012 ;-) Is YV the 2007 chick from this nest which nested unsuccessfully elsewhere in Cumbria 2 years ago, or was that a different one?

Catching up with comments on Facebook reminds me: does anyone (Terry?) know if No-ring is the original male going back to 2001? If so, he is getting on a bit and it certainly wouldn't be surprising if he didn't make it back this year.

Rachel R said:

Interesting news from several directions.

I see that 'Mrs' at Bassenthwaite has shacked up with her son from 2007. Incest seems to be one of the themes for 2012 ;-) Is YV the 2007 chick from this nest which nested unsuccessfully elsewhere in Cumbria 2 years ago, or was that a different one?

Catching up with comments on Facebook reminds me: does anyone (Terry?) know if No-ring is the original male going back to 2001? If so, he is getting on a bit and it certainly wouldn't be surprising if he didn't make it back this year.

Yes he is. In addition he only had two partners. Mrs arrived in 2007 and in 2008 they moved nest from one side of the lake to the other.

CrossOne said:

Yes he is. In addition he only had two partners. I am fairly sure that YV is No-ring's offspring from his previous mate as Mrs only arrived in 2008

No - according to blog on 9 April, YV is from Mrs' first brood. I wasn't 100% certain myself until I read this, but part 2 of that blog is quite clear that this is a mother-son pairing.

EDIT - I see you updated your post while I was checking/ typing this. Thanks, CRossOne!

Osprey on the Muskego Lake cam. Let's hope the GHO does not return:

It is worth drawing attention to page 156 and 157  "Life of Ospreys" by Roy Dennis. There he reveals two ospreys summered in the Lake District in 1997. Then he reveals that in 1998 a female at Bassenthwaite carried a coloured ring. He says that it was a chick he had ringed at Kinggussie on 19th July 1995. Now remarkably he does not mention what the ring was.

Now the amazing bit is that he reveals that a pair of ospreys had bred in secret in 1999 in another part of the Lake District.

Now he also mentions that a young Norwegian osprey had spent time  in the Lake District from 14 to 21 September 1999  (Roy say 14 but the Rutland record says 4   see original ) . Now of course we know this was none other than S09  or Blue XB  the bird that tried to usurp  Blue XD (S18) in 2001

Then the real bombshell. In 2000 the pair of the secret nest returned and reared one chick. So this was the first chick to be raised in England in 150 years.  There were two other pairs that year surely one of which was most probably No-Ring and Green SX (even though we have no absolute proof of that)

In 2001 the secret pair raised two chicks while the Basenthwaite pair raised one.

History has to be rewriiten.

It might be worth taking another look at the original raw  diary enteries concerning  S18 too.