With 26 Ospreys in the vicinity, they are bound to come across one another and over the past few months we have regularly seen other Ospreys, aka intruders, checking out the Manton Bay nest. The vast majority of these occasions are over very quickly with the “intruder” just simply flying by, but sometimes, they do take a closer look at the nest.

Osprey Ambassador Harriet, spent a day volunteering last week with us here at Lyndon, and whilst we were in Shallow Water Hide, watching the Ospreys, the following drama unfolded, which Harriet perfectly describes…

“Maya was just happily feeding her chicks when she heard the whoosh of another osprey's wings. Is that 33(11) back with a fish? She looked up and saw an osprey hovering way above the nest. "That's not 33(11)!" she thought. She started to yell out an alarm call. "Stay there kids. Don't move." She said to her two chicks. Then she launched into the sky and pursued the unwanted guest. The two birds tumbled around in the air and Maya managed to chase the other female off. Maya swooped back to the nest and hunkered down over the chicks. Suddenly, the intruder was back again. Maya screeched for 33(11). He came back to land on the nest and hunkered over the chicks with her. He looked agitated. Swiftly, the pair took off and raced after the other osprey. The intruder flew off, silently into the hot summer sun. Maya and 33(11) flew back to their nest and sat down. The chicks were yelling “Food! Food! I want food!” oblivious to the danger they had just been in. So 33(11) flew off to find them a fish. What an eventful morning.”

We did manage to get a basic ID on the intruder and it was an unringed female which has been observed in the area since April, so this is really positive news that she remains close by and hopefully she may return next year as well.

The Manton Bay chicks are doing really well and are just over four weeks old now and it’s amazing to see how quickly they have developed just over the past week!