The Lincolnshire Bird Club

An adult Osprey was observed, in flight, carrying a fish in the South Thoresby area this morning?!

An adult osprey carrying food in potential breeding habitat? That's a confirmed breeding record (FF) for the BTO Atlas!

Hugh Dorrington

The thought had crossed my mind but Monica and I were on our bicycles and couldn't keep it in sight. A good project for somebody to follow this up although the Rare Breeding Birds panel may well know all about it.

As Ospreys are observed carrying a fish in all months they are here in the UK I'm afraid a single such sighting even in the breeding season is not good confirmed breeding evidence for this particular species in TF47!

It reminds of the classic pager message "Osprey at x, caught a fish and flew off". I suppose it could have been on a day out from Rutland Water.

Good record though and it should go down as a roving record H. (adult in potential breeding habitat in breeding season). There do seem to be a lot of ponds in that area with plenty of fish but interestingly no one has reported confirmed breeding Mute Swan or more pertinently Great Crested Grebe and Kingfisher in the Alford square TF47 or the adjacent TF37 where the winter Sea Eagle occurred a few years ago.

So if anyone goes looking for the Osprey, keep an eye out for these too! I guess the key question is which direction was it flying in?

I think it was Paul Troake who told me that he had witnessed a fish-carrying osprey arriving over the strait of Gibraltar - presumably having caught the fish in Africa or a long way out to sea and taking it along in case it needed an in-flight snack!

Kev

Phil - it was flying NW from just North of Ailby towards South Thoresby.
Ospreys catch loads of fish at sea as I observed many times in Peru last winter.

An Osprey carrying a fish flew over my house in Sudbrooke in May 2008, I assumed the fish had been caught locally, but it seems it may have been caught further afield and it was the Ospreys packed lunch.

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