This is an absolute shocker: last night someone cut down an osprey nest at Llyn Brenig in Wales, where a young pair were incubating their first egg.
Ospreys are a schedule 1 species, and any disturbance of them during breeding season is a crime.
@Miraz A century ago these birds were extinct in the UK. They're slowly been recovering, but they're still nowhere near their original range. It's heartbreaking.
@adders We have some birds like that and I’m aware of the enormous effort that goes into helping them recover. And how slow and fragile the process is. So so sad.
@adders interesting! Here in the US they're not common but you might say common for large birds of prey. We live near a large lake where they're familiar enough that the local indie brewery uses an osprey as its logo. (But it now occurs to me that we might be talking about different birds, as with English and American 'robins'.
@JMaxB Addendum: Wikipedia says it's the same species, with global range. In the Isles, they just show northern Scotland as part of its established range.