Hello all,

Firstly I’d like to introduce myself to the followers of the Loch of the Lowes blog.  I’m the new Seasonal Perthshire Ranger. I spent time during the season last year volunteering alongside Emma, who many of you will remember as the previous Ranger. I’m really excited to be here and, having only officially started yesterday, I count myself lucky to have been here to witness the return of our resident female osprey to the reserve.

Today Lady hasn’t spent very much time on the nest, which isn’t unusual.  After an arduous 3000 mile journey from West Africa, it is likely that she will be spending lots of time fishing to eat well and build up her reserves.  She left the nest today early this morning and made a brief appearance at 3.07 pm this afternoon.  At this stage in the season it is not uncommon for her to be spending time away from the nest.

As of today, I will be taking over the writing of the blog.  It’s a great pleasure to take this task on and keeping this blog up-to-date with details about what’s happening with our resident female osprey as well as other wildlife news from Loch of the Lowes is one of my top priorities.

It is my intention to try and post a blog by 4 pm each day during the osprey season.  While I appreciate this is a change from last season’s early morning posts, I hope that by posting at the close of each day, this will allow me to recap on the events from the day as well as answering some of the osprey-related or topical questions we receive to our dedicated email address ospreys@swt.org.uk.  Hopefully you can understand that we cannot respond to individual emails, but by checking the blog you might find that the answer to your question is addressed in the blog posts that follow.   I am sure you can also understand that the osprey breeding season is a very busy time for staff at Loch of the Lowes.  If the situation should arise which causes a delay in the posting of the daily 4 pm blog post, please lend us your patience and know that this will be due to prioritising tasks important to ensuring the protection of such a special species.

There has been lots of other wildlife activity at Lowes so far today, including sightings at our feeders of a yellowhammer, a jay, siskins, great spotted woodpeckers, and an appearance from a red squirrel.  Also on the loch we have sighted goldeneye, whooper swans, mute swans, and tufted ducks.

The season is kicking off to a great start and I’m really looking forward to the months ahead.

Anna.