A SURPRISE VISITOR

At 19:32 on Monday 10th June, this handsome young chap dropped by to see us. Suffice to say that the resident un-ringed male was not at all impressed.

Blue 698 is a 2 year old male from Tweed Valley, where he was ringed as a chick in 2022.  This will ‘probably’ be his first time back in the UK after completing a return journey to Africa.  Now we use the word ‘probably' here because while it is true that most young ospreys don’t return to the UK until they are two years old, 698s sibling, Female 699, was one of those unusual birds who returned early as a one year old - she was sighted at Kielder Forest last year.

Now you might be forgiven for thinking that 698 would have just called in here to the Usk Valley on his way north, heading home to the Scottish Borders. But here’s another intriguing thing - he has already been there. In fact he landed on his natal nest back in May!  So having not received a warm welcome there he clearly decided to go prospecting elsewhere for a nest and a mate of his own, but who would have thought he would venture back this far south in the process?

We have had evidence of intruding osprey around several times over the past few days, but whoever they were they stayed tantalisingly out of view of the the nest camera.  Even though the behaviour and calls from the resident birds left us in little doubt that there were intruders nearby, the only confirmed sighting came from one of our keen-eyed Watchers on the towpath, who reported seeing three ospreys at the same time.