UKOsprey Information

6 Months and Counting

In January this year with the news of Pete Dee’s death, the decision was made following conversations with several people, to try to carry on his work. His site which for many was the go to place for information about uk Ospreys. I can say now after doing it for the last 6 months, the sheer effort and dedication that Pete put into United Kingdom Ospreys over many years was quite something and obviously reflects his passion, I visited his site daily whilst it was still available, for me it gave a depth to an interest, which has become much more than just an interest and that is in no small part due to United Kingdom Ospreys and Pete Dee.

Not being at all computer literate and being of an age where a laptop bag was used to level your TV dinner, a Tablet was prescribed by the Doctor and a mobile phone was limited to the length of the extension cord for your Landline. We were faced with a steep learning curve.

So we set off on a journey, which has had its ups and downs. Currently we have a Website UKOsprey Information .com (https://www.ukospreyinformation.com/), which allows us to upload PDFs with the Data and little else, we now have a WordPress site, which hopefully with luck and a following wind will allow us migrate what we have so far to populate the new site. Which will then allow some expansion including some form of search facility and live documents which can easily be updated. This upgrade is planned to happen over the winter months. We have looked into a countdown clock similar to the one Pete used, however, the cost is quite prohibitive, we will continue to explore this as it was very popular on his site.

To supplement the Website, we started a Facebook group of the same name (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1479693615888415), this allows us currently to have active documents which we can update easily, such as Egg/Hatching/Fledging info and a Sightings Map. This is also the place where members can leave information, which can be added to the website when verified.

The Website has been populated with data gleaned from many places, credit for which is acknowledged Copyright Credits.

Statistics, so far we have 350 members of the Facebook Group and 55000 visits/page views on the Website. There are 3 Admin of the Facebook group, myself, Tiger Mozone and Rosie Shields from Border Ospreys, on top of that there are also 3 Group experts Tiger Mozone, Val Gall and John Williams From Clywedog Osprey Project. Sitting in the background without Title or Portfolio Mary Cheadle has been an enormous help. All the data has been entered singularly and formatted to our chosen style, if you consider the Blue Darvic bands documents, they contains 11,626 words or 58,030 characters which excludes the formatting and colour coding, so please if you find any errors let us know, so we can correct.

We see the website as being there as a reference point for all. It is important to remember this is a Website which displays Known/Public information. Prior to setting up the website we spoke to Tim Mackrill from the Roy Dennis Foundation his only request was that we had a link to reporting Colour Ringed Birds, which we have done with links on both the Website and Facebook pages, in fact when we update at the end of the season, every page listing Darvic Rings will have a link. Please note all sightings of Colour Banded Ospreys should be reported to The Roy Dennis Foundation, using the following link, https://www.roydennis.org/report-a-colour-ringed-osprey/.

For many enthusiasts having a reference point underpins the experience. The primary purpose behind the Website and Facebook group is to enhance the Osprey Watching Experience and in doing so encourage and support it’s conservation.

In June 2023, United Kingdom Ospreys came to an end and is no longer available, However, it will survive it’s virtual demise, it will always be recognised as the foundation of UKOsprey Information and Pete’s name will frequently be mentioned. I hope UKOI is as helpful and informative as Pete’s site has been and is around for many years to come, and in doing so Pete Dee’s legacy will carry on.

FEEDBACK

What would you like to see on he website, what changes would you like to see in how we present the information? Your feedback via the Facebook group would be much appreciated.