The New Look Centres at Glentress and Kailzie

The New Wildwatch Room at Glentress Peel.
A quick tour of the centre.




The Osprey and Nature Centre at Kailzie Gardens.
A quick tour of the centre.

Tweed Valley Ospreys land on Twitter

With an already avid blog following for the Tweed Valley Osprey Project, we are happy to announce that you can now follow all the updates and goings on at the two viewing centres and nest sites via our brand new twitter feed.

You can follow Tweed Valley Ospreys on twitter @TweedOspreys

The First Egg at Tweed Valley for 2012?

Osprey nest in Tweed Valley

There are a few teething problems with technical equipment at the moment and the technicians have been working over the bank holiday weekend to solve the camera issues.

During a short spell when the camera was working, a keen volunteer David, observed the following and this is what he said:

"In the short time I was able to observe the female on the nest, I think by her body language and manner, that we may have the first egg. She was sitting tight on the nest for most of the time. However, when she did move about she moved very gingerly in little circles, tucking her head down underneath herself as if she was turning the egg. The male also made an appearance. When he landed, they both stood in the nest together looking down at something that was just out of sight, before the female quickly shuffled back down onto the nest. It may be a false alarm, but it looks very likely that there is an egg to me."

This is great news and we will be keeping a sharp look out to see how many eggs that she has.

Looks like it could be an exciting season and well worth a visit. We have two Osprey Watch Centres in Tweed Valley, we look forward to welcoming you along.

Tweed Valley 2012 Osprey Season Starts!

Kailzie Gardens Osprey Watch Tweed Valley has had osprey sightings since 12th March this year. Possibly birds flying north or maybe even our own nesters?

On 26th March the female bird from the live camera nest was sitting on the nest, she was mantling and looking skyward as though there was a bothersome intruder about.

No sign of the male bird as yet.

Blue tits have begun building a nest in the tit box at Kailzie and this is live on camera too.

Check out our web pages for more information on our two Osprey Watch Centres at Glentress and Kailzie Gardens.

End of Season and release of LT

Most of the ospreys will have left for Africa by now and so 2011 osprey season has ended and it has been another successful one in the Tweed Valley. Our main nest birds on camera fledged 3 healthy chicks and we have had returning birds in to the area. The injured osprey 'LT' was successfully released to make his migration journey and that is a fine way to end this years season on such a happy note. I will attempt to upload the release film again as it didn't work last time! I hope that you enjoy seeing LT take off across the valley and he looks strong and healthy. Thank you to all the Tweed Valley Osprey Project supporters and the volunteers who staff the centres enthusing visitors and telling them all about the Tweed Valley Osprey Story. Thank you to all the project partners for another great season and to Tony Lightley and Ronnie Graham for ringing ospreys and Tricia Smith for rehabilitating the injured bird back to health. Glentress wildwatch room with cameras on wildlife will remain open and Kailzie Gardens Opsrey Watch will be open for themed events with the Friends of Kailzie Wildlife Project Officer during autumn and winter.

Film clip of releasing LT

Released today

The osprey has been recovering for nearly two weeks in South of Scotland Wildlife hospital under the specialist care of Tricia. Her dedication paid off today when on the advice of Conservation manager from the Forestry Commission, Tony Lightley, he was taken to the site where he was raised as a chick.
It was with baited breath that he was released and we stood and watched while he surveyed his surroundings and then took off with purpose and good strength. He looked fabulous as he flew across the valley and we were so pleased that he hopefully, is going to make his journey to migrate to Africa in good time.
Thank you so much to Tricia and all her hard work, to enable this osprey to safely recover and be returned to the wild where he belongs.