Osprey Lays Fourth Egg After Last Year's Love Triangle Drama

Love won out for one determined osprey in Dorset, and now she's celebrating with a clutch of four eggs for the third year running.

Female osprey CJ7 laid her fourth egg of the season early Thursday morning at her nest in a walled garden near Wareham. She shares the nest with male 022, the same partner who caused quite a stir last year when CJ7 arrived home to find another female had moved in during her absence.

CJ7 won that battle, and the loyal pair has been going strong ever since. They returned to Careys Secret Garden in late March and quickly settled back into domestic life.

Their romance is doing more than warming hearts. CJ7 and 022 are making history as the first ospreys to successfully breed on England's south coast in 180 years.

The pair has been remarkably productive since they first nested together in 2022. They raised three chicks in 2023, four in 2024, and another four in 2025. This year's four eggs mark a rare achievement for the species.

Birds of Poole Harbour, the charity leading the osprey breeding project, says laying four eggs three years in a row is uncommon for ospreys. Each successful clutch strengthens the recovering population along the south coast.

The reintroduction program started in 2017 when Birds of Poole Harbour partnered with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation. Every year, they relocate up to 14 osprey chicks from Scotland and release them around Poole Harbour.

The young birds typically head to West Africa in late summer, where they stay for a few years before making the long journey back to Dorset when they're ready to start families of their own.

Why This Inspires

CJ7's story shows that second chances and persistence pay off in nature just like they do in life. After last year's drama, she could have found a new nest and a new mate, but she stood her ground and kept her family together.

Now her dedication is helping restore a species that vanished from this coast nearly two centuries ago. Every egg she lays brings England closer to having a thriving osprey population once again.

This year's eggs should hatch in late May, adding four more young ospreys to a population that's slowly reclaiming its ancestral home.