The Bassenthwaite chick, you see, was the first osprey - or sea eagle as they are known elsewhere - to be born in England since 1842, their species having been ruthlessly stamped out by game keepers and river bailiffs.

The reason: ospreys are superb anglers, swooping down to take trout and smaller salmon with a display of skill that infuriated their well to do human rivals. They had to go. And soon after the last English pair disappeared, Scotland and the rest of the UK was cleared too.

But the osprey was to become a symbol. It was also to play a small but important role in my own career. But for it, I would not be writing this column today.

Back in 1960, I was a young freelance reporter based in Bedfordshire and lived not far from Sandy Lodge, the home of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Looking for stories, I called in - and heard about the osprey for the first time.

The RSPB was nowhere near as well known as it is today and had launched upon a new campaign: to return the osprey to Britain from its last remaining haunts in Scandinavia.

I wrote this up and, much to my surprise, the quality papers - The Times, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph - gave it a big show. It was the beginning of a saga that I have been following ever since.

A pair began to breed by Loch Garten, in the Scottish Highlands, and more followed. But there was also a series of tragedies: some eggs never hatched and were later found to be sterile because of insecticides used in seed dressings. This led to a national outcry and the pesticides involved were banned.

Then came the egg collectors, who could sell such trophies for huge sums of money. The RSPB had to set up a 24-hour-guard every breeding season, still continued today, and eventually the Scottish osprey population began to prosper.

Now, it is back in England: just a solitary pair and their single chick but, let's pray, the start of a new colony of these majestic birds. The return of the osprey is a remarkable example of how attitudes towards conservation have changed: the Duke of Westminster, for example, now orders his gamekeepers to protect the nests of rare birds of prey during the breeding season.

And as a trout and salmon, I wish them welcome home: I would gladly give up a few fish for the sheer joy of watching them hunt…