Last updated at 13:41, Wednesday, 13 June 2012

‘Bassenthwaite is a bit like a service station,” says Glenys Pyke, osprey protection manager. “It’s directly on the ospreys’ main route to Scotland from their winter in Africa and they stop off here for some food and rest.”

Osprey

The Lake District Osprey Project, now in its 11th year, was launched after eagle-eyed conservationists spotted ospreys were using the ‘service station’ and decided to encourage them to breed in England for the first time in 150 years.

Supported by the RSPB, the National Park and the Forestry Commission, the project was a success from the start, with the first chick hatching in 2001.

But it’s no mean feat ensuring the birds return year after year, with more than 100 volunteers working on the task.

Keeping the birds’ nest safe from egg thieves, vandals and disruption is, literally, a 24 hour business with volunteers camped out monitoring the birds’ every movement and keeping their eyes peeled for people.

Glenys got involved with the project in 2002, giving talks to children and groups of visitors at Whinlatter visitor centre, near Braithwaite.

“I’d always been involved with the RSPB,” she says.

“I was visiting Whinlatter one day and thought I could have an input. As an ex-teacher I found talking to groups of people relatively easy so I first started doing one day a week talking to visitors about the ospreys. That’s how it started.”

A couple of years later, Glenys, 68, got involved with the viewpoint on the shores of Bassenthwaite, pointing the birds out to people through telescopes and talking generally about the wildlife in the lake.

From there, the next step was helping to protect the birds. Now Glenys is in charge of the 60-strong protection team.

It’s a job that starts in February when she draws up the protection rotas in preparation for the female’s arrival.

“She will usually arrive first,” Glenys says.

“That will happen, depending on the weather, around the end of March, beginning of April.

“We don’t usually start protection until she has arrived but I draw up the protection rotas early so we are up and ready to go.”

Once the male arrives the pair will start to build a nest, either in one of the six established nests or in a new location, like this year.

There has never been an egg theft, Glenys says, but there are also laws protecting the birds from being disturbed.

That is the current priority as an egg has hatched and the chick is nearly three weeks old. Two other eggs sadly failed.

“We work a 24 hour system – we do 12 hours overnight and there are always two of us,” Glenys explains.

“We are always in the same location, depending on where the nest is. We move with that, obviously. We patrol, we take turns to sleep. Some people sleep for two or four hours, it depends on the person. You can learn a lot about each other!”

The first year the birds arrived they nested in Thornthwaite forest and the volunteers were based in a hut in ‘relative comfort’ with a bed and cooker.

When the birds subsequently moved to Dodd Wood the protection squad watched from a tent on a crag which was ‘quite seriously angled.’

“It was fairly common for people to roll out!” she says.

“Luckily there were no serious injuries. The second year at Dodd Wood we had a hut, thankfully.”

This year, the birds have moved to private farmland for the first time and the volunteers are using their own cars as ‘bases.’

Volunteers can access the images from cameras around the nest, which are fitted with infra red for night time vision.

They will generally be based within eye range of the nest, around 300 to 400 yards away.

During the day, they do a shorter shift and there may be just one working.

”We’re not as concerned about egg theft during the day because there are more people about and any thief could be more easily seen,” Glenys says.

“During both the day and night we keep a definitive record of what the birds are doing. If one takes off on flight we note the time, for example, and we keep a note of how many mouthfuls of food they eat.”

Glenys says watching the birds is never boring, because “they always do things to surprise us.”

She remembers seeing the female bird repeatedly jerking its head awake last year “like a student trying to stay awake in a lecture!”

“Ospreys are very alert birds,” she adds.

“You can sit and watch an osprey for hours, their heads are always turning, they are moving about. They are very active in that sense.”

The type of people who volunteer can be young people looking to broaden their CVs to those who are retired and have more spare time.

“I got three girls this year in their 20s and 30s who want jobs in countryside management and are looking to do this to add another string to their bows,” Glenys says.

There’s no set shift volunteers have to commit to, with people doing what they can.

“Sometimes you get two people who might always do a Tuesday night shift together, or you might do a shift with someone and not see them again that year,” she adds.

“It varies. It depends how the person is fixed.”

Glenys herself generally does a shift every couple of days. The reaction they get from people they approach and ask to leave can be hostile at times, she admits.

“Some people will say they are sorry and weren’t aware they shouldn’t be there – despite passing several signs saying no public access or right of way.

“Others are very definitely there because they intended to be and are not bothered about causing trouble.”

The volunteers have a hotline to the police’s wildlife crime team and can call on them to help if someone refuses to leave.

No one has been arrested but Glenys has, on occasion, reached for her phone before the person will leave.

Her job – and that of the volunteers – is likely to go on well into July, until the chick leaves. Then it’s a few months off before she starts drawing up the rotas again. But she doesn’t begrudge a minute of it.

“It’s very satisfying. It might be pouring with rain in the middle of the night and you might be thinking ‘what am I doing here’ but you know that it’s an extremely worthwhile thing to do.

“But when I first started I didn’t think my life would be organised by these birds!”

To find out about volunteering with the project contact Barbara Thompson at Whinlatter on 017687 78469.

First published at 11:25, Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk