On August 10, three days after we had finished releasing our 12 young Ospreys, we had a great surprise to see not just 12, but 13 birds at our reintroduction site—a real baker’s dozen! After counting all the birds several times, we finally identified the visitor: a young German bird that was fortunately colour-ringed, with the code AT07. We immediately contacted Daniel Schmidt-Rothmund, who is responsible for the Osprey colour-ringing programme in Germany, and learned that AT07 had been ringed on June 26 on a nest located less than 50 km away from the region where we collected 6 German chicks two days later!

AT07, or Angela as she soon became known, watched our young birds for a while before finally deciding that she could also serve herself at our fish restaurant. From then on she took several fish there every day until August 14th, before continuing her migration. We were of course sorry to see Angela go, but at the same time very happy that she decided to stop over for several days. And who knows, perhaps one day she will remember the place and even pay us another visit?