Welcome back Racine & Olympe!

The Osprey Racine F29 back in Yverdon, Switzerland

Racine (F29), the last of “our” birds to leave on migration in 2022, has returned. His discovery by Julien Torre at Yverdon on April 17 (photo above) was particularly welcome news given the state of his feathers when he left last year. To date we know of three males back in Switzerland. The first was our star Arthur (F12), returning early on 25 March and putting on a good show every day. He has been quite busy chasing Egyptian Geese and Yellow-legged Gulls coveting his nest platform, as well as having frequent altercations with Black Kites. While Arthur has already had at least one brief visit from another Osprey, so far he hasn’t found a female, even though he has often been displaying and assiduously adding branches and scraping his nest. Too bad there isn’t a “Tinder” for Osprey…

Other good news is that Olympe (F28) is back along the lake of Neuchâtel, where he was first seen in his territory by Patrick Reymond on April 1. Patiently waiting for the unringed lady friend with whom he formed a pair last summer, Olympe has started bringing branches to the two artificial nests built for him.

Right now we’re at the peak of Osprey migration and a number of birds have already been seen flying over Switzerland, although most too far away to see if they were ringed or not. Many thanks to everyone sharing their observations and photos, always very helpful as we hope to discover more returns.