Osprey Conservation in Dumfries & Galloway


 If you want to know anything about Raptors, Ciril Ostroznik, from Ae Village is the man to ask. With a lifelong interest in these beautiful Birds of Prey, Ciril is doing much to help with their conservation in Dumfries & Galloway. Look up in this area and you will see many Buzzards with the familiar wide wingspan, soaring above. But how many of us have ever seen a white buzzard? Ciril took this picture of an albino buzzard  in  an area to the west of Kirkmahoe.

Albino Buzzard

Whilst his interest is in all raptors Ciril has become increasingly involved with Osprey Conservation. I am sure most of us think of Ospreys as being at Loch Garten, and do not associate our area with them, but thanks to the endeavours of Ciril, in the whole of Dumfries & Galloway there are now 13 nesting pairs.

So just how has this come about? I was intrigued to find out that Ciril has built all the nesting platforms which attract the birds to the sites.

Ciril making the precarious traverse to the Osprey Platform

Once the birds have found the site the nests made of twigs can reach over 6' in height. There they rear the chicks and Ciril goes to the nest to ring the young birds. This enables the bird to be tracked throughout its life.





Ciril preparing to ring chicks



If you look at the top picture of this post you will see the parent osprey and young. The photo immediately below here is of the same chick in Brittany where it was photographed by a French photographer. This is the first stage of its migration to Senegal where the ospreys overwinter.

Below is a photo if the same bird in Brittany taken two weeks later, and you will see that it has been fishing. It is also looking more mature, and ready for the long flight to Senegal.

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Kirkmahoe News would like to Thank Ciril for providing the photographs and for giving us an insight into the wonderful work he does for Osprey Conservation in our Region