The first osprey to arrive this year was spotted on 21 March, but poor weather and the presence of other predators meant only six chicks survived.<\/p>\n
That followed a tough year in 2024.<\/p>\n
“The really vulnerable time is when eggs hatch and unfortunately we had quite cold, wet weather this year so the numbers have been lower than expected,” Mr Dearnley said.<\/p>\n
“The first year of migration is always really tough anyway because a bird is learning it for the first time.”<\/p>\n
The Osprey Watch scheme – a partnership between Forestry England and other organisations including Northumberland Wildlife Trust – allows the birds to be viewed around the clock on high-definition cameras.<\/p>\n
There is also a dedicated viewing spot at one of the site’s visitor centres while osprey-watching ferry tours run on the reservoir.<\/p>\n
“They have dramatic habitat,” Mr Dearnley said of the birds. “They dive for fish and are very visible.<\/p>\n
“We can explain more about all the wildlife in our forest by using them as a focal point. It’s a great species to engage with.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first osprey to arrive this year was spotted on 21 March, but poor weather and the presence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-209090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}