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An exhausted osprey – historically known as a sea hawk – has been rescued by a Bahraini family and is being nursed back to health.
It was found in distress in the backyard of a Meqsha home.
The family covered it up with a blanket and fed it before calling a nearby pet store – Bahrain World for Animals – for help and advice.
The Supreme Council for the Environment (SCE) and Al Areen were contacted by environmental activist Yousif Ahmed, the store’s owner.
The osprey is a fish-eating bird of prey reaching more than 60cm in length and 180cm across the wings. It is brown on the upper parts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts.
“It appeared to be exhausted, possibly due to travelling a long distance,” Mr Ahmed told the GDN.
“When I fed it after taking it from the home and, as we waited for officials, it clinched to my hand tightly,” he added.
“It was so strong and, from experience, weighed around 2kg.”
Mr Ahmed has been told the bird is likely to make a full recovery and will hopefully soon be released back into the wild.
The osprey is the second most widely distributed raptor species, after the peregrine falcon, and is one of only six land-birds with a worldwide distribution.
Ospreys are well represented in the Arabian Peninsula where remote islands are the location for some of their key breeding sites. They have been reported to build nests on top of abandoned man-made structures, including archaeological sites.
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