A lovely spring day here at Loch of the Lowes with glorious warm sunshine- and a few light showers to keep us on our toes!

The ospreys continue with their incubation routine- we had to laugh at lunchtime today when the male arrived and physically shoved his way into incubation duty- getting his shoulder under his mate, and pushing her off the eggs so he could have a turn sitting.

The eggs have been diligently turned by both birds regularly- this is to ensure they all incubate evenly and the embryo inside doesn’t form against the side of the shell. The ospreys also rotate the three eggs regularly to ensure each gets a turn against the warmest part of the adult birds body- its brood patch. This is a very vascular (blood vessel rich) area of skin on the breast that both sexes have to keep eggs toasty warm.

There has been only one osprey question today, from lots of our followers: When will the eggs hatch?

Well the osprey incubation time range is said to be between 35- 40 days, with a strong average around 37-38 days after laying. Each egg will hatch in turn  at its appointed time ( if it is fertile)  though sometimes later eggs ‘catch-up’ by a day or so. By my calculations this means the earliest we woudl expect hatching would be:

First Egg: 37 days = 25^th May

Second Egg: 37 days = 28^th May

Third Egg=  37 days= 31^st May

 Keep in mind these are AVERAGE hatching intervals, there could be some natural variation.

Lastly, a quick reassurance that all is well at Loch of the Lowes this evening– all is well with our birds and there has been no incident on the loch. There is a heavy Police presence in the area today, while they deal with an unrelated incident between here and Dunkeld, but there is no danger to our birds, staff or visitors. The centre and reserve will be open as normal tomorrow, but the walking path from Dunkeld to the reserve (known as the Fungarth walk) will be closed by Police until further notice.

Ranger Emma