Some interesting fish eating behaviour from both our female and Blue 44 today. When this morning’s fish arrived she wasn’t on the nest and neither the chick nor his dad seemed to know what to do, even though we know that they do. When she arrived she took the fish off our male and started eating it herself, mantling over it so they couldn’t get some even though Blue 44 was doing his very best to get some. The chick then took a short flight while she was eating, perhaps he realised it was a lost cause. This evening’s fish resulted in a bit of tussle between the chick and his mum, no guesses for who won!

Blue 44 has had few short flights today but spent most of the afternoon roosting on the other side of the tree from the nest right where in our camera’s blind spot. He could be clearly seen from the hides and appeared to be using the upper branches as shelter from the rain. During one of his flights today he flew towards our female, who was roosting just below the nest, and it looked like he was trying to land on the same perch. As a result he shoved her off the perch and the two of them flew around together for a while before she disappeared and he returned to the nest.

Further south there’s been great excitement at the Dyfi and Rutland Osprey projects as 12 (10), a two year old female originally from Rutland returned to home yesterday only to turn up on the Dyfi nest today puzzling Ceulan, the Dyfi chick. This is great news for two Osprey projects that have had particularly challenging time this year.

We had an unusual visitor over at the feeding stations today as we watched a mole as it excavated its hole throwing the earth up behind him. We were also joined by Caleb Kilroy of Salford Universitywho’s working on a wildlife documentary about Red Squirrels as part of his Masters in Wildlife Documentary Production. It’ s been fascinating having him here and we’ve all learnt a lot about what it takes to make one of these documentaries and how frustrating it can be trying to catch nature in action.

Lindsey