A Ringing success..

It's that time of year again when we ring our osprey chicks. On Friday afternoon at 4pm all three chicks were successfully ringed with a BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) metal ring placed on the left leg and a white plastic ring on the right leg.

These plastic rings are for identification purposes, hopefully when these ospreys return to the UK to breed for themselves in three or four years, we'll be able to ID them in the field with a powerful telescope.

The metal BTO rings are placed on birds for recoveries, that is, injured or dead birds could be reported to the BTO giving a time, date and location.

Of the 2,000 or so ospreys that have been ringed in the UK since the 1960s, around 10% of these have been reported back to the BTO; some of these have been found in rather exotic locations such as Iceland and the Cape Verde Islands, one ring was even found in the stomach of a crocodile a few years back!

Apart from ringing the ospreys, we also measure their wing lengths and weigh them. These are their weights:

• YC - 1230 grammes
• YD - 1390 grammes
• YE - 1547 grammes

Going by their weights and 'feel'  of the legs, we think we have a single gender threesome this year - probably all females, it is very difficult to know for sure however. Very strong winds today - gusting to 70mph but the birds seem fine sheltering as they do in the recess of the nest protected from the worst of the winds.