TWO Ospreys will soon be nurturing their first chicks of the season, as the live feed of their nest shows two eggs waiting to hatch.

The return of female Blue 35 and male White YW often heralds spring to people across south Cumbria. Each year they return from Africa to their nest at Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve. 

A live feed set up by Cumbria Wildlife Trust shows viewers how the ospreys go about their daily lives each season. 

There was some concern this year that Blue 35 would not return, as her mate White YW brought unknown female ospreys to the nest and she was not seen for days after he arrived, however soon his mate took her rightful place.

The Westmorland Gazette: White YW returned to the nest with an unidentified female osprey a few days before Blue 35 was seenWhite YW returned to the nest with an unidentified female osprey a few days before Blue 35 was seen (Image: Cumbria Wildlife Trust)

This marks the tenth consecutive year that Blue 35 and White YW have bred here, which makes them a very successful pair of ospreys. 

Joe Murphy, the head of nature reserves at the trust said: "This is a very exciting time of year for all staff and volunteers at Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve, along with the many thousands of online osprey watchers around the country. 

READ MORE: Osprey returns to the nest at Foulshaw for the summer

"There are currently two eggs in the nest – news of the first is always the most dramatic. They usually lay three eggs, three days apart, so we are hoping there may be another by the end of this week. Incubation lasts 35-42 days, so fingers crossed, we may see them hatch around the fourth week of May."

However, Foulshaw Moss was not always a haven for ospreys. Before the 1990s, the 900-acre site was drained and used for commercial forestry and farming. Since then, it has been transformed back into a healthy wetland full of wildlife. 

In England, ospreys were pushed to extinction for around 150 years because of systematic persecution and low breeding numbers. 

They were only reintroduced to central England in 1996. The growing population at Rutland Water has in turn spread to Wales. Of the nearly 300 breeding pairs in the UK, the majority are in Scotland with numbers in England and Wales on the up. 

In terms of the live feed, Joe said: "We've had the live feed on the osprey nest for over ten years now and it has grown in popularity ever since. In lockdown, our viewing rates went through the roof."

Last osprey season, the site had nearly 400,000 unique visits to the live feed page.