Osprey at Pennington Flash

On Monday morning and again yesterday, an osprey was found roosting in trees at the western end of the flash, so yesterday evening I went to Green Lane and waited to see if it would come in again to roost. Sure enough at 7:15pm it did. I watched as it approached from the direction of Lightshaw surrounded by it's entourage of lesser black-backed gulls, before circling around the western end and then appearing to land in trees near Mossley Hall, but out of view from Green Lane.

Today I decided that I needed to be back at 5:30am to see if the bird was still there. There were a couple of other birders present and at first we couldn't see the osprey in the half light. However, at about 6:30am it was picked up on top of a telegraph pole clearly eating a fish. It was hard to believe that it had been fishing before we found it, the calls of the gulls alone would surely have betrayed it's presence, so perhaps it was a fish from the night before.

After a short while it flew into trees at the side of the outflow and perched there in full view for at least another 90 minutes. I moved to Mossley Hall Farm and watched it from there.

I think it's probably a 1st summer bird judging by the pale edging to the coverts and mantle.

What an incredible sight!

It's very unusual to see an osprey perched at Pennington Flash. Usually they just fly straight over and don't stop, though occasionally they will fish.