The moment we have all been waiting for: we beleive the first egg of the 2012 season has been laid by our resident female Osprey tonight.

At around 10.20pm our volunteers noticed her settling in the nest centre and at around 10.30pm she begin a strange fidgeting which is a reliable indicator of egg laying in progress: lots of tail lifting and straining etc.

At around 10.40pm her behaviour changed and she began to look beneath her and perform he usual egg rolling ‘tucking’ gesture with her beak- giving us our first firm clue that the egg really had arrived. She seemed to be trying to position the egg in the best possible spot under her breast before settling happily down to rest around 11pm. Since then she has been resting comfortably and sleeping- well earnt!

It has been rather difficult to see into the nest cup- the deep scrape in the lining of moss etc the birds have made to nestle eggs in. However, we believe we caught a glimpse of the egg, and are confident from her behavior that it has arrived safely! Rest assured that at first light we will zoom in with the movable camera for a better view.

Now we have to hope a) the egg is fertile, b) it is joined by others c) the new male is prompted to be a better dad by their arrival!