Plume (released in Switzerland in 2018, and who returned for the first time to Germany in 2020) has three chicks (see photo)!  This week Daniel Schmidt ringed them in north-eastern Bavaria, about 450 km away from Bellechasse. For a while it was not clear which female was on the nest, since at the start of this season there was a ménage à trois when the male (BE63, born 30 km from there in 2017) was with an unringed female at the same time. Later Plume appeared to have won BE63 over, although it was only confirmed very recently that chicks had hatched.  All three of them are doing well, even if one, as is often the case, is much smaller than the others.

In Moselle, David Meyer tells us that Mouche’s two chicks are now visible at the edge of the nest, and that she is still often by their side. They now have the typical Osprey look with their black eye-stripe, and are also frequently spreading their wings. As the nest is on top of a dead tree, it is unfortunately not possible to climb up to ring them.

Having at least two of “our” females nesting this year in France and Germany is an important new milestone for the project. The next one should be to find a territorial pair in Switzerland, but for that we will need to wait a bit longer.