Our young Osprey Blue 44 is still with us at Loch of the Lowes: amazing considering it is the second week of September. Some other 2012 UK born osprey chicks, such as “Alba” from RSPB Loch Garten , have already started and already completed their autumn migrations! However, we have historically had satellite tracked birds from Scotland start as late as October and migrate successfully and so we are not worried, just pleased we still have him with us to admire and enjoy.

As the latest satellite tracking data shows, Blue 44 is still sticking close by the nest here and is still being fed by dad- surely amongst the most dedicated and generous of Osprey fathers we’ve ever seen! He was most recently seen this morning on the nest delivering a rainbow trout.

Interestingly we have had several other visitors to the nest recently: red squirrels, spotted flycatchers chicks, a nocturnal mouse, and another juvenile osprey yesterday-cheekily landing a total of five times , if only briefly.

Our Red Squirrels at the Visitors centre have been getting very bold- yesterday, two of them ran right along behind the seats of a group of Biology students visiting from Pitlochry High School, who helped us do a biodiversity survey of the reserve.

Your ranger team has also been out today on the loch in the canoe doing our monthly beaver monitoring patrol. We found lots of evidence of beaver chewing and feeding on small branches around the loch, but no felling. As many of these signs are fresh, it seems this animal is still with us, even though it has proved to be a bit more shy recently.

Lastly, we’ve had a few requests for a map of Blue 44s movements around the loch in more detail: here is an example for the last few days: