Great news on the Loch today: our Great Crested grebes have hatched at least one chick. Around lunchtime we saw a tiny wee head pop up amongst the female’s wing feathers as she sat on the nest. These birds have a habit of carrying around their wonderfully striped chicks on their backs, so we hope to see a lot more of these over the coming days.

 On our osprey nest, the chick has begun stretching its wings more- even near the edge of the nest which was a bit worrying! This is another important step in its development- the stretching and eventually flapping will help build the muscles that it will rely on in flight all too soon.

 Also on the reserve over the last couple of days, one of our regular visitors Douglas Milne has snapped a couple of other wild residents, which goes to show the short walk along the lochside woodland path from our car park often holds more wildlife than it my initially appear!

Lastly, We have just downloaded the latest information from the satellite about Blue YD our 2012 Osprey chick who is still in Senegal. He continues to do well on the coast, mostly fishing this week in the shallow salt lagoon, rather than in the waves, though he has popped out to sea a couple of times. He has developed a really strong preference for a particular roosting spot which is now covered in dots on our interactive map page at: http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/osprey/