Breaking News: Second Breeding Pair of Osprey in the South!

We have an incredibly exciting announcement to share!

As many of you will know, last year one of our males from the 2021 cohort of our Poole Harbour Osprey Translocation Project, ringed 374, spent the latter part of the summer visiting several of our nest platforms, where he encountered a female from Rutland, ringed 1H1, who fledged from the livestreamed Manton Bay nest back in 2022. They spent much of the latter part of the summer together establishing a pair bond and moving around several sites, giving us high hopes that they might both return this spring and form the second pair of breeding Ospreys in Southern England since 1847.

Sure enough, 1H1 returned in very good time this season and immediately visited the nest site at Careys Secret Garden, trying her luck with 022 before CJ7 arrived back on March 25th. After swiftly being seen off by CJ7 upon her return on March 26th, 1H1 spent some time roaming the local area and visiting many of the other nest platforms which she and 374 had found the previous summer. With so much spare time on her hands she even ventured further afield to Somerset in early April, but the pull to return to the south coast was strong, no doubt because she was anticipating the return of 374. We were all feeling much the same way!

Then, on the 5th April, during one of our Spring Safari Cruises, a blue-ringed male Osprey passed the boat. Upon inspecting a photo taken by a guest onboard we were thrilled to confirm that the leg ring read 374. He was back!

With both birds back safely in the UK, we were monitoring things closely behind the scenes, hoping that 1H1 was still in the local area and that the pair would be reunited. Just over 24 hours later on April 6th, they did indeed find one other, landing together on one of our new nest platforms which we’d built in July last year at a private site. They began bonding again straight away, and over the following weeks got straight down to business, adding a huge quantity of sticks to the nest, carrying out daily fish swaps and performing plenty of mating attempts (this bit always seems to take a bit of practice for first timers)!

We are now delighted to announce that on April 24th, 1H1 laid her first egg! A clutch of three eggs was laid in total, and on June 3rd their first chick hatched quickly followed by a second on June 5th: an excellent result for first time breeders!

This is another major milestone for the project, and is a real testament to the hard work that goes into reintroduction projects! Not only is 374 a direct product of this process himself, but 1H1 is also from Rutland: a population which was established by reintroduction nearly three decades ago. In fact, she is the granddaughter of translocated male, no less than the famous 03 who was released in 1997 (otherwise known as Mr Rutland due to being the first breeding male in the population and the vast contribution he made to the population over his lifetime)! Their story mirrors almost exactly that of our first pair 022 and CJ7, and is another demonstration of the vital role that dispersing females play in ensuring the health and connectivity of populations.

Ensuring the ongoing protection and success of this important new nest is our absolute priority, and therefore we will not be sharing the location of the site publicly. We appreciate your support in maintaining this privacy, and therefore ask that if you do know or learn of its location that you do not share this information with others. As always we are enormously grateful for the support of the local Rural Crime team and the landowner in ensuring the safety of the breeding pair, and we are working alongside them to provide protection and monitor progress on the ground and via remote cameras. Please be aware that there is no livestream camera on this nest, but we will provide updates on major milestones as the season progresses. In these future communications we will refer to the site simply as “Nest 2”.

Another huge thank you goes to the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation for the support and advice they have provided throughout this process, and to our own staff, volunteers, and all those who have helped to fund the installation of new nest sites and cameras, allowing us to support and monitor this growing population. If you’d also like to make a contribution to our Osprey work you can donate here.

We share our congratulations with the team at Rutland and all of the supporters of both projects. We hope you enjoy the photos and videos below, captured over the course of the season so far, and we can’t wait to see what unfolds across the two(!!) nest sites during the rest of the season!

1H1 and 374 landing on their new nest on April 6th