Pennington Flash Osprey

One of the best ways to see a migrating osprey is to use your ears and listen. Not for the call of the osprey itself which is an easily learned and diagnostic whistle, but more for the calls of the irate posse of gulls which seem to follow them everywhere and which often announce the arrival of this magnificent raptor long before you see it.

I had just arrived at Sorrowcow farm near the yacht club today, when I became aware that the gulls were going mad. This wasn't just the usual aggressive calls amongst themselves, something was really bothering them. I've experienced this before and at this time of year I was pretty confident that I knew what it would be even before I looked up. Looking behind me I could see that the birds were still quite distant but fortunately they were heading straight towards me from the south.  In the middle of the gulls I could see a large shape with arched wings and a head on profile not unlike that of a huge gull. Clearly an osprey! It flew right over me and I could see that it had a missing secondary on it's left wing. For an osprey it was really shifting, it powered its way north and I watched it until it was just a dot in the distance. An awesome experience. Of course ospreys eat exclusively fish so it's no threat to the gulls but I guess that they just don't like such a big bird of prey in their area. This is at least the third osprey reported over Lowton / Landside since Saturday.