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Portrait of Osprey

Nature · Birds

Osprey

Summer visitor · wingspan 145–170 cm

Pandion haliaetus — Pandionidae (its own family)

A fish-eating raptor in a family of its own, the only British bird of prey that plunges feet-first into water to catch fish. Persecuted out of Britain by about 1916, it recolonised Scotland at Loch Garten in the 1950s, and translocations to Rutland Water from 1996 seeded the English and Welsh populations. Its reversible outer toe and spiny footpads are adaptations found in no other raptor here.

How to spot them

  • ▸Plunge-dives feet-first into water — no other British raptor does this
  • ▸White underparts and a white head with a dark mask through the eye
  • ▸Wings kinked at the wrist, looking gull-like at a distance, held in an M when gliding
  • ▸Pale grey legs, not the yellow of a buzzard or eagle; yellow iris in adults
  • ▸Carries fish head-first, aligned with its body, to cut drag

How to know it

The only British bird of prey that plunges feet-first into water, then carries the fish head-first to cut drag

Osprey — Pandion haliaetus, sole member of its family Pandionidae.

A reversible outer toe and spiny scales on the soles grip slippery prey

Osprey — adaptations unique among British raptors.

Recolonised Scotland in the 1950s at Loch Garten in Speyside, where the nest was guarded around the clock

Osprey — the RSPB's Operation Osprey began in 1959.

Sixty-four Scottish chicks were moved to an English reservoir between 1996 and 2001 to found a new population

Osprey — the Rutland Water translocation.

First nested in Wales at Glaslyn in 2004; the male was a chick translocated from Scotland in 1998

Osprey — the Glaslyn nest in Snowdonia.

Bred on the south coast of England in 2022 for the first time in nearly 200 years, at a Dorset harbour

Osprey — the Poole Harbour translocation project, begun in 2017.

Brown above and white below with a dark mask, it looks gull-like at range because its wings kink at the wrist

Osprey against buzzard — the pale underparts and kinked wings are diagnostic.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Scientific name Pandion haliaetus; it is the only member of the family Pandionidae
  • •BTO BirdFacts gives 240 breeding pairs in the UK (2013–17 estimate); the RSPB now puts the UK total at about 400 pairs
  • •Amber-listed in Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021) and on Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
  • •It has a reversible outer toe and spiny scales (spicules) on the soles of its feet to grip slippery fish, and nostrils that close on impact
  • •Persecuted to extinction as a British breeder by about 1916; a pair recolonised Speyside and bred successfully at Loch Garten from 1959, where the RSPB mounted a round-the-clock guard
  • •Sixty-four chicks were translocated from Scotland to Rutland Water between 1996 and 2001, with 11 more females in 2005
  • •The first Welsh nest, found at Glaslyn in 2004, held a male that had been translocated to Rutland as a chick in 1998
  • •The Poole Harbour translocation project began in 2017; a pair bred there in 2022, the first on England's south coast in nearly 200 years
  • •British ospreys winter in West Africa, chiefly Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources