Easter egg for the Lake District Ospreys
Many who have stayed at the Best Western Castle Inn Hotel before, may already know that Bassenthwaite is home to The Lake District Osprey Project.
Bassenthwaite Lake, a key habitat for the ospreys, is a National Nature Reserve and a Special Area of Conservation owned and managed by the Lake District National Park Authority.
Each year these beautiful and rare birds return to nest and this Easter was made ???eggstra??™ special by the return of our male and female Osprey 2 weeks ago.? The female osprey laid her first egg of 2009 at the nest near Bassenthwaite Lake on Thursday 16th April.? The female bird is now incubating the egg and it is hoped that further eggs will be laid in the coming days.? Ospreys normally lay a clutch of three eggs.? Incubation is carried out mainly by the female and takes between 34-40 days.
Peter Wells, General Manager of The Castle Inn Hotel Keswick said: Staff at the hotel are very ???eggcited??™ that the first egg has been laid.? We are hopeful that there will be more eggs and that the clutch will hatch in time for our Spring Bank holiday visitors in May.
Hundreds of people visited the Bassenthwaite area over the Easter weekend to get a glimpse of the Lake District Ospreys.? ? Visitors can get great views of the birds from a Viewpoint in Dodd Wood, only 400 metres away from the nest.? The Viewpoint is open all daylight hours, with staff on hand with telescopes from 10am-5pm daily, as part of the RSPB??™s ???Dates with Nature??™ Project.
It is also possible to see the birds on the nest on a giant videowall at the Visitor Centre on the Forestry Commission estate at Whinlatter Forest, near Braithwaite.? Live pictures from cameras overlooking and inside the nest are also beamed to the screen and can also be viewed on the Project??™s website www.ospreywatch.co.uk and the BBC Cumbria website at www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria.
It is now easier than ever before to visit Dodd Wood and Whinlatter thanks to the Osprey Bus which was launched in 2008.? The liveried bus service named after the spectacular birds of prey operates around Bassenthwaite Lake taking in the Whinlatter Exhibition and the Dodd Wood viewpoint and runs weekends from 4th April to 31st August 2009, except during the following school holidays, 6-17 April, 25-29 May and 18 July - 31 August when it runs every day.? A bus timetable is displayed at the hotel as the liveried bus service picks up from and drops off at The Castle Inn Hotel during these times.
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