The eldest chick (5R0) took off last Sunday 14th July at 9:08am followed by 5R2 a couple of hours later, 5R1 on Thursday morning and finally 5H6 on Monday 22nd at 15:28. This has been an amazing success with all chicks looking in great condition and now learning to explore the skies!

Webcam footage of 5R0 fledging on Sunday 14th July

They’re still coming back to the nest for fish from the parents and will continue to do so for the next few weeks before starting to think about making their migration in August/September. They’ll begin exploring the wider area within the harbour and we’ll hopefully see the young ones starting to explore on our upcoming Osprey Cruises!

This season has been incredibly special so far, and it has been a joy to share the experience with so many people online and at Careys Secret Garden.

If you haven’t been able to see the Ospreys at their nest site your final opportunity this season will be on Wed 24th July & Thu 1st August when we’re running free Osprey pop-up watches at Careys Secret Garden between 11am-3pm, with tours starting on the hour, every hour. We’ll hopefully see the chicks coming back to the nest to be fed by their parents and taking their first few flights!

Access to the pop-ups will only be possible to visitors to the gardens so please make sure to book tickets in advance on the Careys Secret Garden Website. Donations welcome on the day!

Fourth chick 5H6 fledging from the camera pole yesterday

The oldest chick being 40 days old and the youngest 33 days old, meant that this was the prime window to ring the chicks before they become too feisty, and crucially able to fly!

Paul ringing the Osprey chicks – taken by volunteer Mark Wright

They were ringed (shown in age order oldest to youngest) 5R0, 5R2, 5R1 and a very special ring for the youngest, 5H6. Often you can determine the sex of Osprey chicks during the ringing process, taking multiple measurements, including weight, which can indicate whether a chick is male or female. Female Osprey, as in many raptor species, are typically larger and heavier than the males, and this size difference can usually be seen while still in the nest.

Sexing the chicks was tricky this year as all of the weights, aside from 5H6, were in the overlap zone for males and females at about 1600g. 5H6 weighed around 1400g, indicating that he is likely to be male, even taking into account his age gap. The other three chicks, however, could go either way! Considering how well-fed they have been this year, there is an outside chance that all four chicks are male, which would be excellent news, given their higher pre-disposition to returning to their natal area to breed.

We’ll keep assessing as time goes on via the webcam, as size can become more exaggerated and behaviour can also become a useful indicator of sex, but for now this is a fantastic moment for the Ospreys, with all growing really well and fitted with identifiable colour rings!

You can keep up with the action from the webcams here.

All four Osprey chicks in the nest after ringing

Her return represents a major milestone for the Poole Harbour Osprey Reintroduction Project, which began in 2017 led by Birds of Poole Harbour in partnership with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation. The project seeks to reestablish a healthy population of Osprey to the South Coast by translocating young birds from Scotland to the local area. 

The first pair of Osprey bred as a result of the project back in 2022 on a nest at Careys Secret Garden, with translocated male “022” pairing up with female “CJ7”, to rear two young. 5H1 was their single surviving chick from that season – the first wild-fledged Osprey in Southern England since 1847 – making her a very significant and important bird!

The last time 5H1 was seen was the day she departed on migration at just 12-weeks-old on Thursday 24th August 2022 as she flew over the Middlebere Channel in Poole Harbour. Incredibly, she has now returned to exactly the same place almost two years later, touching down on an artificial Osprey nest on the RSPB’s Arne nature reserve, where she was photographed by a motion-sensitive camera. 

The image revealed that she was also perched alongside her father, 022, who seemed to have detected the presence of another Osprey nearby and gone to investigate. They quickly went their separate ways to hunt for fish, before 022 then returned to his nest at Careys Secret Garden, where he and CJ7 are now breeding for their third season and have this year laid a record clutch of four eggs. This comes following their success in raising a further three chicks in 2023. You can follow CJ7 and 022’s progress this season via the live web cameras at www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey/osprey-webcams

Image of 022 (right) and 5H1 taken in the Middlebere Channel on Tuesday morning

The return of 5H1 bodes well for the return of more wild-born chicks in the future and for the success of the project overall in re-establishing a self-sustaining population of Ospreys in Dorset and restoring this magnificent species to its historical range. The hope is that 5H1 will soon meet up with another translocated male released in 2021 known as 374 who was spotted back in the area on 15th April and has also taken an interest in settling down on several artificial nests in Poole Harbour. Should they form a new pair and attempt to breed in future years, the prospects for growth of the local population would be very bright indeed!

Brittany Maxted, Species Recovery Coordinator for Birds of Poole Harbour said:

“This is a momentous day for all of us involved in the project! The return of 5H1 is testament to years of hard work, and to the incredible quality and parenting skills of our breeding pair. It demonstrates once again what a fantastic place Poole Harbour is for Ospreys (alongside so many other species) and how comfortable they are in the landscape here.

Our joy at seeing them back is shared by many in the local community and further afield. We’ll be eagerly following and sharing 5H1’s progress over the coming months and years, and hope to see her become a permanent feature in the harbour skies each summer.”

If you are hoping to watch Ospreys in Dorset this season, Birds of Poole Harbour  offer boat trips throughout the season, and are once again partnering with Careys Secret Garden to offer expert-guided Osprey Tours for a chance to see Southern England’s only active Osprey nest. Tickets for all events are available at www.birdsofpooleharbourbookings.co.uk For anyone hoping to catch a glimpse of 5H1, there are plenty of excellent places to go and watch from, including the Osprey Lookout at BCP Council’s Ham Common reserve and the RSPB’s Arne reserve.

The first egg was laid on Monday 15th April and was celebrated by hundreds of people online who have been watching live stream webcams of the nest since the start of the season. The remaining eggs were laid every three days, with the fourth laid on the evening of Wednesday 24th April.

The pair, identifiable by their leg rings as CJ7 and 022, started breeding in Dorset in 2022 as a result of the Poole Harbour Osprey Reintroduction Project, which began in 2017 led by local charity Birds of Poole Harbour and the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation.

Female Osprey CJ7 protecting her first egg on the nest, taken via Birds of Poole Harbour livestream webcam

This is the third year that the pair have bred at the site at Careys Secret Garden near Wareham, having raised three young successfully last year. It is unusual for Ospreys to lay a clutch of four eggs, usually producing only three as CJ7 and 022 have done previously. The eggs will be incubated by the pair for around 37 days, and hatching is expected to occur in the latter part of May.

“The offspring reared on this nest will play an incredibly important role in building the foundation of the recovering population of Osprey on the South Coast. Before the reintroduction project, Ospreys had been missing from our landscape as a breeding bird for 180 years because of historical persecution. The fact that they have laid four eggs this year is even more exciting as we are watching the first steps of recovery on the South Coast, and the more young that are successfully raised on this nest adds to the number that could return to Dorset to breed themselves in future years. We’re looking forward to seeing what unfolds for the rest of this season. ” – Liv Elwood, Charity Manager at Birds of Poole Harbour

People who enjoy streaming the webcam online were able to watch the nest from a different perspective last year as Birds of Poole Harbour and Careys Secret Garden formed a partnership to enable the public to visit the site and view the nest through guided tours. 

These events were carefully managed to ensure that the safety of the nesting birds were prioritised, and to prevent any disturbance while still allowing hundreds of people to enjoy watching the important nest. Earlier this month, they announced that these events were returning again for 2024, and are now bookable online.

“Careys Secret Garden is delighted to see CJ7 and 022 back on the nest this year. It’s a real privilege to share our space with them and watch the events of the season unfurl. We look forward to warmly welcoming the public back in 2024 following a hugely successful year last year.” – Simon Constantine, Careys Secret Garden Founder

To ensure the protection of the nesting pair again this year, pre-booking is essential for these tours which can be found on the Birds of Poole Harbor website (www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk), along with more information about the project.

Male Osprey 022 with the four eggs

These 2-hour sessions between 8am-2pm will give a fantastic opportunity to see the only nesting pair of Ospreys on the south coast of England from an exclusive viewing platform, led by our Birds of Poole Harbour team in partnership with Careys Secret Garden.

Please make sure to book in advance as there are only 12 tickets available per session and there is no alternative access onsite for viewing the nest. Please help us protect the birds by not turning up to Careys Secret Garden without booking, and not straying away from the permitted areas to try and view the Ospreys. The nest site is incredibly sensitive and Ospreys are a Schedule 1 species which means they are protected by law. We therefore ask that you are mindful not to disturb the birds and avoid attempting to get closer to the nest as this will risk the success of this very important nesting pair. We’re privileged to be able to now share this space with these birds, and ensuring their safety is our top priority.

We’ll be releasing the tickets in batches, month by month, so keep an eye on our website and newsletter for updates on more tickets being available.

To find out more and book online, please follow this head to our bookings page.

With the safe fledging of the three Osprey chicks last week, we’re now entering the final stages of the 2023 Osprey season and are keeping everything crossed for an equally smooth migration for all three youngsters in around a month’s time. Of equal importance is the safe departure, migration, and hopefully return next season of our breeding pair, CJ7 and 022. To have them settled and producing young for the second year in a row is a great result for the project, and of course we now also have our newly returned young male 374 prospecting various harbour nest platforms, which bodes very well for next spring, when we could now quite reasonably expect to see two occupied Osprey nests in Poole Harbour.

5H3 sat in a nearby dead tree after fledging on Wednesday 19th July 2023 – Brittany Maxted

With this in mind, safeguarding these breeding adults is vital to securing the successful re-establishment of our South Coast breeding Osprey population. Therefore, given the ongoing Bird Flu situation nationally and the ongoing outbreak in Poole Harbour, together with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, we have decided that we will not be running our Osprey translocation project this year.

Ospreys are generally considered to be a low-risk species for such viral infections, as their ecology means that they are unlikely to come into contact with infected birds (of either the same or other species). While we can test any collected birds for infection before bringing them down together from Scotland, there is still a chance that they can contract the virus after they are released in Poole Harbour. During this post-fledging period, we continue to put food out for the translocated Ospreys several times a day for at least 4 weeks before they leave on migration, which not only draws them all in to close proximity, but also attracts in Magpies, Carrion Crows, Common Buzzards, and other Ospreys too. In previous years both CJ7 and 022 have visited the release site to feed on this food we’ve put out, and we believe this years wild fledged juveniles would also do the same. This mixing of many individuals and species is not a natural scenario for Ospreys, and it greatly increases the chances of transmission for Bird Flu, particularly from Common Buzzard which are a known carrier, attributing ~12% of all cases in wild birds across the UK since 2020 (where a case may refer to multiple birds in the same locality). In 2021, Common Buzzard were a regular visitor to the release site, often feeding right next to our released juvenile Ospreys, and it is this potential interaction that causes us greatest concern. Thus we feel that whilst there is an ongoing outbreak locally the only way to fully mitigate this risk of transmission to any translocated chicks, but also to our wild birds as well, is to not go ahead with the project this year.

Buzzard and Magpie feeding on the release pens alongside translocated chick 373 in 2021

This is of course a frustrating outcome and one that is unfortunately largely outside our control, however there are already successes to be celebrated this season. If all continues to go well, our three juveniles from the wild nest will depart safely at the end of August, representing a crucial contribution to the future Poole Harbour population: particularly those two males, who may well return to breed themselves one day.

Bird flu is another logistical challenge that often comes when working with wildlife, and one that must be worked through methodically and responsibly. This means continuing to work towards our objective of restoring a self sustaining population of Ospreys in Southern Britain, whilst also prioritising the wellbeing of the birds. With this in mind, we are already looking at ways to continue translocating chicks in coming years that mitigates the risks of Bird Flu and maximises the productivity for our developing Osprey population.

As always we will be working closely with our colleagues at the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation on achieving these goals, and are incredibly grateful for their ongoing support. And let’s not forget that thanks to their work with us and their partners at Forestry England, we now have both Osprey AND White-tailed Eagle breeding in the South England for the first time in over 240 years!

Since 2017, Birds of Poole Harbour and the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation have been working hard to re-establish a South Coast breeding population of Osprey; a majestic bird that really captures people’s imagination. Since the story began, an ever-growing community of people from near and far have followed the project and offered their support, sharing our excitement through its twists and turns. For many people this connection began in 2020, when we launched the livestream nest camera and CJ7 found her way into people’s hearts, providing a much needed distraction for thousands of us during the early months of the pandemic. Our hopes grew the following year, with the return of our translocated male 022 and the strong pair-bond we watched him form with CJ7. 2022 then delivered the outcome we had been waiting for, when the pair made history by raising two chicks and became the first breeding Ospreys in Southern England in nearly 200 years. Having both safely returned this spring, we’re now in the exciting position to be able to share the next part of this story with you, by hosting a series of guided viewing experiences at the site where the pair have taken up residence.

Seeing the special attachment that people have formed to the pair and their story has been one of the most rewarding elements of the whole project, alongside witnessing just how well this incredible bird of prey can re-establish in this part of the country: soaring over Poole Harbour and hunting on the edges of the conurbation. Like so many of our lost species, they belong in this landscape and that they are wanted here, as is evident by the number of people who now visit the area specifically to see and learn about the Ospreys. This eagerness to see the birds, though, must also be carefully balanced against their sensitivity to human disturbance, particularly around their nest site.

Over the last year, more and more people have inevitably discovered where the pair are nesting, and we have been incredibly grateful for their cooperation in keeping the location to themselves. Most importantly, this has given the pair space to settle and have a successful first season, but it has also allowed us to build a plan to provide a secure guided viewing opportunity at the site with the bird’s best interest in mind. To be able to achieve this, we have been lucky enough to form a partnership between Birds of Poole Harbour and local business Careys Secret Garden; a beautiful walled garden nestled in the Piddle Valley that is perfectly situated to provide guided viewing of the Osprey nest.

Careys Secret Garden is an award-winning business that puts the local community and wildlife at the heart of what they do, offering garden visits and hosting a brilliant array of events throughout the year. 

They have helped us keep the nearby Osprey pair a secret over the last year, with just a few observant garden visitors noticing the aerial Osprey activity over the garden. We are now excited to be partnering with them to add Carey Osprey Tours to the events offered by the gardens, with three sessions each day on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. These two-hour tours will be led by an expert from the Birds of Poole Harbour team and will be bookable online in advance, with initially only 6 tickets available per session. The tickets include an in-depth guided tour up to a new Osprey nest viewing platform, with the opportunity to learn more about the Poole Harbour Osprey Project from your guide, as well as access to the stunning walled garden and its facilities for the duration of the day.

The public’s enthusiasm and care has been integral to the successful conservation of Ospreys in this country right from the very beginning, ever since public viewing was first permitted at RSPB Loch Garten back in the 1950s. This engagement work – which has since been replicated at sites across the UK and abroad – not only compliments ongoing efforts to safeguard Osprey nests, but even enhances them, by educating a wide audience and ensuring that many watchful eyes work together to protect the Ospreys from harm. We hope this story will continue in Dorset and by sharing the location of the nest we are putting our faith in the public to act as custodians of the species once again. Careys Secret Garden shares our appreciation for just how special it is to be able to provide viewing access to the only Osprey nest on the South Coast, and the responsibility that comes with that. The viewing of the nest at Carey is therefore being very carefully managed to avoid any risk of disturbance, with only small groups permitted at any one time, so please make sure to book onto one of the tours in advance if you would like to visit and share this experience with us. 

From the moment the pair returned this season, our staff and volunteers have worked hard to monitor their behaviour, whilst also assessing their reactions and acclimating them to the presence of small groups of onlookers watching from a platform at a safe distance from the nest. Despite Ospreys being real creatures of habit, we have been very encouraged by how well CJ7 and 022 have adapted to this small shift in their surroundings. Of course, the success of the pair is our priority, and so if there are any signs of detrimental impact as a result of our tours, we’re sure you will understand our need to pause these events and review our activities on site.

Osprey are a Schedule 1 species, meaning they have the highest level of protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. This means it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly disturb the species near to, at, or on an active nest, providing a legal base for any disturbance issues the pair may face. Like last year, the nest will still be protected each day, with our dedicated team monitoring the nest and surrounding area, and additional protection provided by security units at key locations. We’re also working closely with Dorset Police Rural Crime Team and the National Wildlife Crime Unit to ensure there is no disturbance or trespassing risks to this private site.

These first stages of recovery of Osprey on the South Coast are symbolic of a great deal of hard work and inspiring conservation efforts being made to restore nature locally. It’s very exciting to be able to share this next phase of the story with you, and, with three eggs currently being incubated, it hopefully won’t be long until we have more wild Osprey chicks fledging in Dorset. Here’s hoping for another successful season for CJ7 and 022!

Book your place on our Carey Osprey Tours here!

Since their return, our Osprey pair have both been busy adding material to their nest in preparation for breeding. This has included a variety of natural objects including moss and grass to line the nest cup and sticks to build up the nest wall. However on Friday 7th April our male 022 brought in a far less desirable lining material: a sheet of black plastic. Over the course of the bank holiday weekend he brought in several more pieces, some of which have since blow away (a preferable outcome for the Ospreys but not for the habitats they will have blown into), though the original piece remains weighed down by added later sticks.

We believe that the plastic is discarded agricultural waste that has come from nearby farmland. In order to reduce the risk of any more being brought in we have been out looking for potential locations where 022 might have collected it and we are very grateful to the neighbouring land owners who have agreed to inspect their own land and ensure any such material is removed. To an Osprey flying overhead any loose plastic sheeting such as bale wrap moving in the wind likely looks very similar to grass, and unfortunately large chunks can easily be torn off in their strong talons. Once in the nest, it catches easily on surrounding twigs and gets gradually buried as more material is brought in, making it less likely to be dislodged by the wind or the birds. Sadly is it all too common to see plastic in the nests of wild birds, and Ospreys are no exception: materials such a baler twine are often collected in a similar way, and can pose an even more serious threat of entanglement for chicks and adults. Though theoretically less severe, black plastic sheeting can still pose a potential risk to the Ospreys, and this is obviously not a desirable state of affairs so early breeding season.

In an ideal world we would be able to quickly climb the nest tree to remove the man-made material, but there are a number of  other risks and limiting factors associated with this process, which must be weighed up against those of leaving the it in the nest. The first is disturbance to the birds, which could be especially detrimental at the present stage, when CJ7 is likely to begin the laying process any day now. We would not want to negatively impact them at a crucial time and risk an extreme outcome such as nest abandonment or failure. Should we conclude that the risk of this is sufficiently low and chose to make the climb up the 25+ metre nest tree, we would require a suitable weather window to do so safely. The high winds forecast for the coming days are likely to either delay this process or prolong the time it takes to reach the nest, meaning a greater potential disturbance impact on the birds. There is of course a chance that these high winds may help to dislodge the plastic but this is not guaranteed.

We will be taking all of this into account and assessing the situation further in the coming days, and will aim make a decision as to the best course of action as soon as possible. Whatever conclusion we reach however, we will ensure that it is in the best interests of the Ospreys and their success.

CJ7 in the nest with the black plastic on the right