AT least one chick has hatched in the nest of a pair of rare ospreys at Bassenthwaite Lake, in Cumbria.
The female osprey is known to have laid three eggs - but because they were laid several days apart, and will hatch at different times, it will be some time before the project team knows exactly how many have hatched.
The Lake District Osprey Project announced that round-the-clock guards first spotted the chick on their closed-circuit TV camera on Saturday at 5.15am.
The news comes as a relief to the project partners and the thousands of people who have watched events unfold this spring.
About 25,000 visits have already been made to the osprey viewpoints in the Lake District, while many more people have been watching developments over the Internet.
People from all over the world are following Cumbria's famous wildlife family thanks to a Big Brother-style camera overlooking the nest.
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