The most fantastic news today. Elizabeth Tindal, whose a Dumfries and Galloway Council Ranger in Scotland, sent me a photograph of an unknown osprey residing in that part of the world. This osprey is ringed with a plastic Darvic ring on it's right leg with the number 80. IT"S ONE OF OURS!!!
This was a male osprey chick from our Glaslyn pair in 2006. He's obviously survived his first migration to west Africa in 2006/7 and returned to the UK this year - absolutely brilliant.
Here's a photograph taken in 2006 of the chick being ringed in Wales
and here he is two years later in Scotland (thanks to Keith Kirk for the image)
This is the first time that any of our chicks have been positively confirmed as having returned to the UK. Who knows, if the weather was fine for '80' hopefully his sibling of 2006 will have made it to Africa and back also; keep an eye out for an osprey with a black ring with '5Y' on it!
Well done to everybody here at the Glaslyn Osprey Project and to Elizabeth and Keith up in Scotland. It's moments like this that make everything seem worthwhile.
Finally, I would like to thank all the staff and dozens of volunteers that work at our Protection site each year. See, all those freezing night shifts in the forward hide in snow storms and blizzards were worth it. Congratulations.