HED Ltd have been working closely with the site team in Scotland to deliver a major new utilities infrastructural project. We have provided initial ecological survey information and mitigation plans as well as site EnvCOW (Environmental Clerk of Works) to allow the project to progress.
A recent success has been the fledging of 3 osprey chicks from the nest nearby. The site team worked with our ornithologists to monitor any likely disturbance and to co-ordinate the works programme. This was particularly critical during the egg laying and brood rearing stages of the pair settling on the nest. The chicks are now adult size and have been venturing further and further afield as they grow in confidence.
The artificial platform was constructed well in advance of the works to minimise the potential conflict when the birds returned in the Spring of 2021. Here we see 2 of the 3 chicks and one bird feeding on a flounder likely to have been caught on the coast a 30km round trip.
These fish eating birds will travel up to 5000km migrating to Scotland each year to breed from their African wintering grounds. They are a major reintroduction success story with some 250 pairs now breeding in the UK – they were considered extinct in the UK from 1916.
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