Update 5.30pm:

What an exciting day here at Loch of the Lowes. After this mornings two sightings of Ospreys on the nest ( neither of which we believe to be our regular breeding  female “Lady” ) there were further sightings on the loch this afternoon. In total birds were seen six times around the loch, including once fishing, and again carrying a fish. It has been a little hard to keep a track of all the action , but we are absolutely sure there were at least two Ospreys in action as one lucky photographer got two in his picture!

None of these birds has returned to the nest to roost this evening so it is quite possible that they were merely stopping by to fish on route to nests  further north.

Update 11.30am:  The bird has returned to our nest,  and given us really good views of her, which has allowed us to be sure that this is not the female we know as “Lady”  as it lacks the distinctive eye markings.

None the less it is a beautiful bird: a large, unringed female, who has a couple of missing feathers ( not uncommon after the hard work of migration) and looking a little hollow in the chest, which means she is a bit underweight.  Her behaviour is still confident around the nest , so perhaps it is a local bird- perhaps even a bird born here?

 

 

Another exciting morning here at Loch of the Lowes as another Osprey landed on the nest at 9.02am, and staying for four minutes.

This was not the same bird as yesterday’s sighting, as it had a distinctive missing tail feather, which the other bird lacked.  

The behaviour was also quite different: this bird looking confident and comfortable on the nest , starring straight at the camera and even walking around the edges of the nest as if to check it was all in order!

The bird was unringed and almost certainly female with a strong dark band on the breast and good dark head markings.

We are trying to zoom in on the recording to her eyes so we can see if the distinctive markings are present to confirm the birds ID.

The bird headed off down to the eastern end of the loch slowly and obviously looking for fish below, so we hope that the bird might return to the nest with a catch later this morning.

Stay tuned for more news!