Farmer scared off ospreys with ‘tours’

♦ A farmer who set up unofficial “osprey tours” has been fined £2,000 after disturbing the rare birds. Paul Barnes took children on his tractor to visit the near-extinct bird of prey in Bassenthwaite Lake, in Cumbria, where he claimed he conducted careful conservation tours, in June 2017.

Since the birds returned to the Lake District in 2001 after 150 years, they have raised more than 30 chicks. Barnes’s trips were said to have scared the parents from their nest as they fed their young. After a trial at Workington magistrates’ court, Barnes, 58, was convicted of recklessly disturbing the family.