Wow what a day. After last night’s egg-citment we’ve had plenty to keep us occupied today.  Our new male has taken to his parental duties well and is very keen on incubating, this morning he even shoved her off the egg so he could have a shot! He tried to do it again later on but she wasn’t having any of it. He’s a real fidget when he’s incubating, standing up and fiddling around with the nest materials and not always sitting on the egg – but as long as he keeps it warm and safe, we aren’t worried.

Despite being keen on incubating he’s also tried to either mate or instigate mating with her twice today and you can guess the reception he got. Needless to say neither attempt was successful, but this is perfectly normal at this stage.

As if this wasn’t enough there was an intruder osprey flying overhead and briefly landed on the nest.  True to form our female chased it off the nest and it lazily flew away but our male didn’t get involved at all.

He did catch another whopping fish, dead this time so it didn’t fight back. After a flying overhead with it initially we were all waiting for him to bring it back to her, and she was calling to him, eventually he circled the nest twice with the fish and disappeared off to eat again. After a while he did bring the fish in which she promptly removed from him and flew off.

 

 

In other news a Wigeon was spotted on the loch (unusual this late in spring) and the Sand Martins have been zooming around after the flies. Let’s hope they keep that up when the midgies arrive.

Today also saw the start of our experiment to tweet directly from the hides as the action happens so if you’re on Twitter you can follow us @SWTLowesRanger.  Don’t worry if you’re not on Twitter we’ll keep you up to date with all the day’s news in the blog.

If you enjoy reading about our ospreys, how do you fancy getting involved in helping protect them? The 24 hour Osprey nest protection watch has begun and we’re always looking for volunteers to help cover shifts morning and evening shifts and you get to see all the action for real. The task requires patience and good observation skills but you don’t have to be an expert in birds – we can give you all the training you need. If you are interested in getting involved, please call Emma the Ranger on 01350 727337 or email erawling@swt.org.uk

 Today’s blog was an Emma and Lindsey collaboration