The timing could not have been more perfect. As crowds gathered yesterday to witness the official opening of the Somerset Long Bay East Nature Reserve, an osprey swooped into view.

Its arrival to cries of delight from onlookers, seconds before Deputy Premier Paula Cox officially opened the restored bird-watching spot, said more than words ever could about the value of Bermuda's wildlife to its people.

Finance Minister Ms Cox — dressed in eye-catching shades of brown and green to mark international Earth Day — told those gathered how it had taken a year for the area to be renovated after the Island's Buy Back Bermuda Committee raised more than $2 million for the project. "Wow, well done!" she said. "I say to the Buy Back Bermuda Committee who are assembled here today that you did good."

The committee was set up with the help of Bermuda National Trust and Bermuda Audubon Society to reclaim parcels of land at risk of development and preserve them as open spaces. The Somerset scheme — made possible thanks to 500 donors, including Government, which put forward $300,000 — is the first plot to have been bought and beautified.

The initiative was led by former Premier and Finance Minister David Saul, who donated $20,000 himself. Ms Cox said yesterday: "To you Dr. Saul, and you as a former Finance Minister might enjoy the irony, but you in some aspects are like a modern-day Robin Hood.

"You have spearheaded the efforts to take monies from some who are doing well to give back to the community as a whole, by assisting in the purchase of this open space so that we preserve more and more of our green spaces. Now, who says Finance Ministers, both past and present, don't have a heart?"

Dr. Saul quoted poet Robert Browning's famous line "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world" as he surveyed the sun-drenched nature reserve, which includes the extended Pitman's Pond. He told The Royal Gazette afterwards: "It was going to be 20 condominiums here. We needed $1.4 million to buy it and we raised $2.25 million. Now it's never to be built on, just frozen in time like this. In 15 years, it will be a forest of cedar trees and endemic plants. You won't see a building and it will look just like it looked 500 years ago."

An obelisk bearing the names of the 500 donors stands at the site. Dr. Saul said: "I wager that I'll get a minimum of 1,000, probably 2,000, next time. We reckon every three years we'll do this. It's the future we are concerned with."

Wildlife champion David Wingate, who alerted Dr. Saul to the plot when it looked likely to be developed, said the appearance of the osprey was a good omen for the reserve and the Buy Back Bermuda Committee.

"I always seem to see a good bird when I have been involved in opening up a new nature reserve," he said. "Today, just before we did the speech the osprey came hunting down the bay. I just thought it was a nice touch and underscored the point that this is a nature reserve that is very attractive to a wide variety of birds."

He described the Somerset site as "marshland filled in completely as a garbage dump" before its restoration. He added that the the reserve showed the importance of balancing the need for development with environmental concerns. "The secret of success is making the most effective use of the land resources we have," he said.