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Recent Events

All 3 Ospreys still here

Dear all Approaching September it’s getting late in the season for the Ospreys are back in Galloway project and thoughts will soon be turning towards migration. Indeed we thought for a moment this week that our female H/D had left us for Africa after she hadn’t been seen for three days. Come this morning however, she reappeared on the nest and was given a Mullet by her partner EP. Just a false alarm this time, and all three of our Ospreys are still with us, but if you head on over to Wigtown you could be the last person to see her before next Spring.

At nearly 12 weeks old our chick BA has been flying for four weeks. Although we can see her proficiency in flight we have so far not been able to confirm BA catching her first fish. However, as we were watching her eating a Bass delivered by EP this morning, zooming in with our cameras revealed her blue Darvic ring plastered in mud. So we can conclude that our chick is certainly attempting to hunt out on the mudflats with her parents, even if we cannot say for sure that she has successfully caught a fish.

In the Wigtown Bay Visitor Centre we continue to record 24 hours a day and broadcast live pictures from the nest, keeping visitors up to date with the latest recorded footage. We also have an enviably large archive of footage showing every significant step in BA’s life so far in high definition. Our cameras have recorded in detail her hatching, the first meal at 2 hours old, her first wobbly steps and the transition from being fed to tackling whole fish. We also have film of ringing from both inside the nest and with the chick on the ground, family squabbles on the nest, BA exercising her wings and finally taking the plunge for the first of many flights. Not least as we move into September your sighting of her could make you the first person to see BA fishing successfully or, as with H/D before, the last person to see her until she returns to breed in years to come.

Concluding our Osprey Update this week, we are very pleased to announce that Roy Dennis will be visiting the Ospreys are back in Galloway project next month in conjunction with giving a lecture and fielding questions as part of the Wigtown Book Festival. As many regular Osprey followers will know, Roy has been instrumental in the re-establishment and monitoring of Ospreys in Scotland over the past 50 years since the first pair reappeared at Loch Garten. Also the founder of the Highland Wildlife Foundation and a prominent author on the life and ecology of Ospreys, he offers an expert view of these regular visitors to Wigtownshire.

Roy Dennis – A Life of Ospreys.

Monday 28th September - 3.30pm, tickets priced £6

Box Office: 01988 403222 or book online at www.wigtownbookfestival.com

(Ticket-holders are invited to meet the author in the Wigtown Bay Visitor Centre afterwards)

Hope to see you then