Network Rail and the Fish Hawks

Heartwarming indeed Graham. Beautiful birds of prey of all kinds have been tormented and abused by mankind for many, many decades. It's so nice to see that "we" are finally giving something constructive back. Long may it continue - and expand even.

Cheers

Dave
 
That's really, really awesome.

We have osprey where I live as well. My brother and I were out canoing and saw one swoop down and pull a large pickerel out of the lake. It's amazing seeing them in action.
 
There are lots of ospreys on that stretch of Welsh coast, including some at Pont Croesor on the Welsh Highland Railway and others at "secret locations" near the Ffestiniog Railway. The F&WHR were even going to name one of their observation carriages Osprey but no one could agree whether the Welsh for osprey was Eryr y Môr (sea eagle) or Gwalch Pysgod (Fish hawk) so it became Glaslyn instead.
 
At one point, the mighty bald eagle was about to disappear from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, America's most visited national park. That's when the theme park Dollywood stepped in and began a captive breeding program and successfully returned the bald eagle to the Smokies. There is an aviary at Dollywood that's home to bald eagles that can't be released into the wild, and also a show showing off several different birds of prey. If it wasn't for Dollywood investing their time and money into returning this majestic bird to the Smokies, the bald eagle would never soar over the Smoky Mountains. Yes Dollywood is not a railroad, but they're doing the same thing as Network Rail: preventing the demise of a bird of prey from disappearing from their native habitat.
P.S. One of their roller coasters, Wild Eagle, is themed to the bald eagle, complete with the bodies of the individual cars painted to look like bald eagles. They also have a large, metal sculpture of a bald eagle sitting outside the entrance to Wild Eagle and, over time, the metal of the sculpture will slowly rust, turning brown, just like the feathers of the bald eagle.
 
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