Across the UK, 2025 has proven to be a dramatic and challenging year for birds of prey, with both native and exotic species facing uphill battles for survival. From the windswept forests of Northumberland to a small falconry centre in rural Wales, conservationists and bird lovers have watched as ospreys and vultures alike struggle against a host of threats—some natural, others the direct result of human activity.
In Kielder Forest, Northumberland, hopes were high as the osprey breeding season began. According to BBC Newcastle, the year started with the promise of a bumper crop: at one stage, there were 14 osprey chicks in the nests monitored by experts. But as the weeks rolled by, optimism gave way to concern. By the end of the season, only six chicks had successfully fledged, a sharp drop compared to previous years.
Joanna Dailey, a dedicated Kielder osprey monitor, summed up the situation: "This year there was no one, critical reason - multiple factors have led to poor productivity. However, six more youngsters in the population is good. And the two new bonding pairs will hopefully lead to breeding next season. So not all is doom and gloom." Her words reflect both the disappointment of setbacks and the enduring hope that defines wildlife conservation.
What went wrong? The story is a web of misfortune and complexity. Stormy weather battered the forest, destroying one of the precious nests. Predators, too, played their part—two chicks were snatched by goshawks, a reminder that nature’s drama is often unforgiving. Illness struck, and experts suspect that the relative inexperience of some young osprey parents may have contributed to the losses. Perhaps most heartbreakingly, three adult ospreys who had paired up for the season simply never returned from migration, while another succumbed to illness later in the year.
Even the birds’ social lives seemed to conspire against them. One female osprey, faced with four eager suitors, spent so long choosing a mate that, by the time she made her decision, it was too late to breed. Elsewhere, a lone male finally found a partner, but again, the timing was off. The result: fewer chicks, fewer triumphs, more questions than answers.
Yet, amidst the setbacks, there are glimmers of hope. Two new breeding pairs formed in 2025, raising cautious optimism for a stronger showing in 2026. As Dailey noted, "six more youngsters in the population is good," and every fledged chick is a small victory in a world of shifting fortunes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in Newtown, Powys, another battle for survival is being waged—this time on behalf of a species far from home. At Falconry Experience Wales, Luce Green and her partner Barry MacDonald have dedicated their lives to the critically endangered African hooded vulture. Their work, as reported by BBC News, is both urgent and deeply personal. "It's my life's work," Green said. "I like to think of it as love into action."
Why such urgency? The numbers are stark. Fewer than 150,000 African hooded vultures remain in the wild, and the most recent assessment in 2021 estimated just 131,000 mature adults—numbers that continue to fall. Poisoning, often perpetrated by poachers who fear that circling vultures will give away their location, is a major threat. So too is the use of vulture parts in traditional medicine, a practice that persists despite mounting evidence of the birds’ ecological importance.
Green and MacDonald have introduced their hand-reared male, Togo, to a female named Hope. If all goes well, the pair might produce a single chick—a small but significant step in the fight to save the species. "There are only 200 hooded vultures in a human-based environment and the race is on. It's a fine line of what's needed to actually save them," Green explained. For now, the focus is on increasing the captive population, as the wild remains too dangerous for reintroduction.
The importance of vultures goes far beyond their own survival. As Campbell Murn of the Hawk Conservancy Trust told the BBC, "It's super important to breed from these birds and maintain what we call a safety net population." Vultures, he said, are the "canary in the coal mine," indicators of ecosystem health. "If your vultures are dying and disappearing then you've really got some problems." They may not win beauty contests, he joked, but their role as nature’s "dustbin collectors" is vital. By swiftly disposing of animal carcasses, vultures prevent the spread of disease—a service that, when lost, has dire consequences for humans as well as wildlife.
The tragic lesson of India’s vulture crisis in the 1990s looms large. There, a catastrophic decline in vulture populations led to an estimated half a million human deaths over five years, as diseases spread from carcasses that would previously have been cleaned up by the birds. The lesson is clear: undervaluing these unglamorous scavengers can have deadly repercussions.
The Welsh centre is not alone in its efforts. The Horstmann Trust, a conservation charity based in Carmarthenshire, runs the European Endangered Species Programme for hooded vultures and supports breeding efforts like those in Newtown. "We are the fall-back," said Adam Bloch of the Trust. "The work we are doing, and zoos around Europe are doing, is really to be that lifeboat, to be that ark population."
Falconry Experience Wales has recently invested in GPS trackers for four hooded vultures in West Africa, allowing researchers to monitor their movements for up to five years. Fundraising is also underway for poison response kits, which could help save birds affected by poisoning in the wild. The centre’s ambitions don’t stop with hooded vultures; they hope to breed white-backed vultures as well, another species in steep decline. With only about 270,000 left globally and just over 7,000 in South Africa, the situation is, as Green put it, "alarming."
Bloch offered a poignant analogy: "They are like the Ford Escort of the vulture world in the sense that everybody just took them for granted, they were so common nobody really worried about them." Now, with populations plummeting, every chick hatched in captivity is a lifeline thrown to a species on the brink.
For both ospreys in Northumberland and vultures in Wales, the road ahead is far from easy. But the dedication of those who monitor, study, and care for these birds offers hope that, with perseverance, the tide can be turned—even if only one chick at a time.
