Good afternoon all,

Events from the nest today:

Here at Loch of the Lowes, we are all excited to see our female osprey’s 59^th egg. This is an astonishing achievement and we are all hopeful that she is still fertile at her grand age and may manage to raise her 50^th chick this year.

The 24 hour Osprey Watch is now in full swing as we monitor the nest and surrounding area carefully in order to protect the eggs from thieves and from any unintentional disturbances that may cause the nest to be abandoned.

A question we received from ospreys@swt.org.uk asked us why the egg is sometimes left for long periods of time. This is because up until the remaining eggs are laid, incubation will be done intermittently to ensure that hatching occurs at roughly the same time, allowing all chicks a fair chance at survival.

We may expect our female osprey to lay more eggs over the coming days. For a chance to view footage of the 1st egg of this season, follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NT_RwdOWuI

Other wildlife at Loch of the Lowes:

As well as the usual mix of tufted duck, goldeneye, mute swan and canada geese a cormorant and two grey heron were seen fishing on the loch. At the feeders there were around 25 chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, a dunnock and a great spotted woodpecker.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the appearance of a red squirrel at our feeders. These small, tree-dwelling and rather adorable mammals can be easily distinguished from their larger grey cousins by their bright red fur and tufts of hair on the tops of their ears.

Please bear with us over the coming period while Osprey Watch takes place. I’m sure you will appreciate this is a very busy time of year for staff at Loch of the Lowes but we will endeavour to continue to post the blog by around 4pm daily, but please be patient if there should be any delay.

Anna and Simon