A beautiful day of spring sunshine here at Loch of the Lowes- and how the wildlife have responded to the lift in temperature! On dawn shift this morning, it was noticeable how much more bird song there was, and the Great Spotted Woodpeckers have begun drumming in the woods around us again.

Out on the loch, the wonderful Great Crested Grebes are once again courting, with now fewer than three pairs dancing on the loch this evening- a wonderful sight! The Goldeneye duck too are displaying, with their strange ‘head throwing’ dance- comical but the females seem impressed!

We have also had a kingfisher sighting today and a good wee snippet of the otter on our camera on the loch inlet which is live in the Visitor centre. It seems at last things are coming back to spring mode – even the hazel , willow and alder tree catkins are finally coming out around the loch.

Our osprey pair have been happily settled on the nest today- apart from a brief disturbance by an intruder osprey early this morning – it was seen off before it could land by the combined shouting and mantling (defensive posture) of both our male and female birds.

Lastly a nice anecdote from our volunteer team in the hides on the nest protection watch around dusk last night:  the male osprey was followed around the loch to several different tree perches by a crow. He had some fish in his talons and the crow followed him for about 15 minutes, trying to snatch some food, or harass him into dropping his meal- but our osprey  wasn’t falling for it and won his dinner to eat in peace in the end.