Sometimes, managing ospreys can get a little out of hand. Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary Director Gina Purtell recalled a recent rescue of one of the sanctuary’s young chicks at a conservation discussion on August 4.

Word of a bird floundering on the Westport River had come in from a boater. Purtell and a volunteer took the call, and soon discovered a young osprey chick struggling in the water, lost after flying away from its nest.

Purtell quickly identified where the chick belonged–one of the many nests the sanctuary manages along the Westport River–but as she placed the lost chick back into its nest, one of its siblings took a tumble into the water.

“Young ospreys are like teenagers learning how to drive: they sometimes crash,” Purtell said.

Purtell and local osprey expert Adam Poole led the discussion on both local and European osprey conservation before a crowd of about 20 people.

“Osprey have had a great year this year,” Purtell said, noting that there are currently 130 to 140 chicks living in nest sites the organization has built to support osprey conservation along the Westport River. Purtell said that the osprey population continues to grow in the area after the population was left decimated by the widespread use of DDT insecticide in the 1950s and 1960s.

After hearing from Purtell, Alan Poole highlighted his recent trip to Europe to study osprey conservation in the region. One of the most surprising things he learned there is that ospreys are even scarcer in Europe than they are in New England, he said.

“We have as many osprey nests in the Westport River now than the entirety of Scotland 10 years ago,” Poole said, pointing to a large forestry industry in Scotland encroaching on the birds’ habitats. He added that similar trends can be seen in other European countries as well, and said that there are about 6,000 to 7,000 pairs of ospreys covering the region between Russia and France.

Poole said he made a stop in the United Kingdom to visit the Rutland Osprey Project, an osprey conservation program that both manages and monitors nests and tags and tracks the migration patterns of the birds from Europe to Africa. Poole highlighted the project’s educational program, called World Osprey Week, which links schools in the UK and Africa for a week to learn about their shared bird.

Poole also visited Finland during his trip, which has a large and active osprey conservation program. He said one conservation center he visited built photography stands next to ponds stocked with fresh trout so that wildlife photographers could take up-close photos of the birds hunting their aquatic prey.

The next lunch and discussion will be on August 18 at 12 p.m. at Stone Barn, 786 East Horseneck Road. The featured speaker will be sanctuary neighbor and novice bird-watcher Norm Buck, who will discuss photos he took of birds in his backyard and will also provide an update on Westport’s bald eagle nest.

The Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary is run by Mass Audubon, a nonprofit that protects 36,500 acres of land throughout Massachusetts.