Ospreys are large birds of prey that eat fish, which they catch in a spectacular foot first dive into the water from a height of up to 40 metres. They live on all continents except Antarctica, and are very adaptable. Ospreys breed in North and Central America, from Northern Europe across Asia to Japan, through much of South-east Asia and Australia. Further populations live in North Africa, the Middle East and India. Northern populations are migratory, mostly wintering in the Southern hemisphere, the Indian sub-continent and South-east Asia. In Northern Europe and North America they live by large lakes and waterways, nesting in trees nearby. Further south in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean they often nest on sea cliffs and in the Red Sea they nest on the ground on remote offshore islands. In Britain Ospreys, like all birds of prey, were persecuted, shot, trapped and poisoned in the past. Here the last Ospreys were killed off in 1916. In the late 1950s Ospreys once again began prospecting potential nesting sites in Britain and a pair bred successfully in 1959 at Loch Garten in Scotland. The male was a Scandinavian bird (he was wearing a ring, but the number could not be read); his mate was likely to have been Scandinavian too. They were given special protection and numbers of breeding pairs have slowly increased. By 1973 there were 16 pairs, in 1989 there were 58 pairs and by 2004 there were at least 189 pairs. In 2001 Ospreys bred for the first time this century in England. The recolonisation of the Osprey is carefully monitored by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
 
This is the story of one such Osprey. Ozzie was hatched in a nest in Scotland on 26th May. With his two sisters he fledged on 16th July. Since then he had been polishing his flying skills, and waiting to be fed by his parents. His mother had gone over a week ago, and his father brought food less frequently ....