After the last few days shenanigans we’ve had quiet day on the nest. Blue 44 hasn’t moved from the nest despite some serious wing flapping and this afternoon we really thought he was going to go but not yet. It’s like fledging all over again. The fish have been arriving thick and fast with two Perch, a Pike and a Brown Trout so far. Blue 44 has had most of them except for this afternoon’s Perch which appeared to be for our female. She disappeared with it only reappear an hour or so later with the remains and start feeding the chick. This is a change from yesterday when Blue 44 was feeding himself from the fish while mum stood by.

There’s been some discussion about our female’s behaviour towards the chick when he returned yesterday whether it was a telling off or whether she didn’t recognise him and was treating him like an intruder. From the way she acted it could be possible that she thought he was an intruder, it does happen as the Rutland Osprey team experienced yesterday when their male 5R attacked his unfortunate daughter 9F. I’m inclined to think it was more a telling off as she escorted Blue 44 back to the nest and forced him down onto it which she’d be unlikely to do if she thought he was an intruder but noone can really say until they invent an Osprey mind reading machine!

It seems this year’s Osprey chicks are determined to keep all the Osprey sites on their toes. As mentioned at Rutland 9F collided with her father on return from her maiden flight which he didn’t take very well and proceed to attack her. The Rutland team had to intervene when it was clear something wasn’t right. You can read the full story on their blog. Their fledglings are keeping them very busy with 1F and 3F also running into problems and I thought our chick was keeping us occupied. Over at the Dyfi Osprey Project Ceulan, who’s a week younger than Blue 44, took his inaugural flight and wound up in a field of cows but made it safely back to the nest later on. Alba at RSPB Loch Garten kept them all guessing for 24 hours until she came back. Bucking the trend were CK0, CK1 & CK2 aka the ‘Pointer Sisters’ at Tweed Valley Ospreys  and the chick from Nest 1 at Kielder Ospreys who all fledged without major incident.

Lindsey