Events on the nest today:

A headless fish was delivered to the nest at 08.11 this morning by 7Y.  Our resident female then took the fish and flew off with it, leaving her mate on incubation duties until 10.27.  Our resident male continued to bring in material for the nest today, including a large lump of turf at 12.05.  We have had some nice clear shots of the eggs and we hope to add close-up footage of them to our youtube channel this evening. 

A question received via ospreys@swt.org.uk asked if the female was more vocal on the nest than the male.  7Y does call on the nest from time to time, but his calls are far less frequent.  Our resident female is often very vocal and calls frequently to her mate. Female ospreys often call to their mate requesting food during the breeding season.  These are referred to as begging calls by Alan Poole in “OSPREYS a natural and unnatural history”, though he suggests that this behavior has very little influence on the males.   

Other wildlife at Loch of the Lowes:

Early this morning we were delighted to see two red squirrels eating peanuts from our feeders.  One of the squirrels was seen to return on two more occasions throughout the day.  Other visitors to our feeders today have included: a great spotted woodpecker, a robin, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, a starling, the ever present chaffinches, 2 green finches and a siskin.  We have also seen two male yellow hammers and a female yellow hammer. 

Out on the loch this morning was a group of about 20 tufted ducks, some Canada geese, 2 mute swans and many mallard ducks.  A pair of great crested grebes was on the loch today and at one point seen sharing a small fish. 

Lindsay

SITA Species Protection Officer