This day will stay in my memory for a long time to come. In the morning I was on duty at Ospreywatch and was able to watch the ringing at the televised nest on CCTV. A film crew from Border Television were in attendance and the event was covered on the local evening news the following night. In the afternoon another volunteer and I attended a ringing at a different nest.
When we arrived at the nest the parent birds could be seen circling the nest at a distance and in fact a third Osprey also appeared briefly and all three could be seen in the sky at one time.
When the chicks were lowered to the ground each was taken from the bag in turn and weighed and measured before being ringed. A vet was also in attendance and she checked each bird thoroughly before taking a blood sample. After the formalities were over there was time for us to be photographed with the chicks before they were returned to the nest.
Although a licence is required to photograph at an Osprey nest I was covered by the fact that the party of ringers was licenced.
This was indeed a once in a lifetime experience which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The photographs shown are a very small sample from the 140 shots which I took on the day!
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