Fact 71
EJ - Resident female at Loch Garten, she first bred there in 2004 with Henry (he had orange eyes like Monty). She has had several relationships, both marital and extra-marital and has had several of her eggs kicked out of the nest by other males. Her boyfriends include Orange VS, Blue XD, Red 8T and her current partner Odin. And these are just the ones we know of!
Fact 72
Lady – Resident female at Loch of the Lowes from 1991 to 2014. As most females do not breed until their third year, she must have been at least 26 years old (she was unringed, so we do not know her exact age) when she last bred in 2014. She laid 71 eggs during her lifetime and 50 chicks subsequently successfully fledged her nest.
Fact 73
Rutland 03(97) – The first of the Scottish translocated ospreys to breed at Rutland and father of Nora. He is the breeding male at Rutland Site B (update: although not returned in 2016 to date). He's successfully raised 32 chicks to fledging with three different females. He is the Grandfather of Glesni and Blue 24.
Fact 74
Glaslyn 11(98) – Scotland to Rutland translocated male who bred on the Glaslyn nest in Wales from 2004 to 2014. He fledged 26 chicks with the same female, two of which are the breeding males at Kielder Water (White YA and Yellow 37) and another is the Threave male in Scotland, Black 80.
Another two of his offspring have also returned to the UK and bred: male White YC (2008) landed on the Dyfi nest in 2011 and later fathered chicks at a nest in Cumbria, and female White 91 (2009) has been breeding in Perthshire since 2014.
Fact 75
Logie – First osprey to be fitted with new generation GPS satellite transmitter in 2007. Her movements were followed during 2008 on the BBC Radio 4 programme “World on the Move”. Successfully raised two chicks that year, but departed on her Autumn migration in bad weather and was not seen again.
Fact 76
Henry – Resident male at Loch Garten from 2003 until 2007 and named because he carried an orange leg ring HV. He was famous for his regular late arrivals, by which time EJ had usually mated with another male and produced eggs, which Henry would then kick out of the nest. He also had orange eyes like Monty.
Fact 77
Rothiemurchus – Male that was hatched in 2009 on the Rothiemurchus Estate in Scotland and was satellite tracked as a chick. He's been returning to Scotland (Dunkeld and ranging in an area of 230 square km).
Fact 78
08(97) – The first of the Scottish translocated ospreys to return to Rutland in 1999, but he did not breed until 2007 when he paired up with Green 5N in Manton Bay. The pair moved nest to another Rutland site in 2009 after a failed breeding season due to constant interference from another male osprey. They successfully raised chicks there in 2009 and 2010, Glesni being one of the chicks from the 2010 nest. Sadly 08(97) disappeared in suspicious circumstances in 2011.
Fact 79
SSK - A juvenile female satellite tagged in 2002 in Scotland. SSK undertook her first ever migration passing directly over the Dyfi and continued over towards the Bay of Biscay before being blown off course by strong easterly winds. She was heading into the middle of the Atlantic before the weather this time came to her rescue with a change in wind direction. She finally made landfall in southern Portugal having flown over 1,500 miles non-stop in 64 hours. Not surprisingly perhaps, she stayed in Portugal that winter! SSK returned to Scotland three years later and successfully raised chicks.
Fact 80
Unringed osprey on a beach in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico in 1991. The first osprey Project Manager, Emyr ever saw in his life. In his shorts and T shirt he ran after the bird which was carrying a fish for several hundred yards pointing wildly and shouting "OSPREY, OSPREY!" at all the tourists sunbathing on the beach. His girlfriend later said she had never been so humiliated in all her life and failed to speak to him for the rest of the day. It was the start of a wonderful love affair, and the end of another!