Over  the past 2 weeks, the peregrine have been quietly, well fairly quietly, going about their business incubating the eggs,  I was hoping to do a series of  of blogs on raptor persecution. Unfortunately, this past fortnight has been a real bad spell for raptor persecution and every time I tried to researched one account another would quickly replace it. So lets start with the good.

Good news..

The Peregrines are doing well, the rest of the ranger team were even lucky enough to spot and egg this week. So we can confirm there is definitely 1 egg, although I think there is at least 2. Potentially even better news is that we are now, mathematically only 1 week away from hatching! So soon we will be counting how many wee fluffy white heads pop up calling for food, and that will give us a better idea how many eggs they are.

Looking at last few her records, the chicks have started to hatch after 31 days of incubation from the day the last egg was laid. I think she finished laying her clutch on Friday the 4th April. The would take us to next weekend with Sunday 5th May and Monday 6th May (the bank holiday) being a very likely hatching day. Its getting very exciting.

Heres a video of the Falcon flying of the eyrie,you can appreciate how difficult it is to try and spot the eggs, tucked down in the nest scrape.

Not so good news..

After receiving the news that there had been a disturbance incident at Scottish Wildlife Trust  Loch of Lowes Osprey nest site. We have our own potential disturbance incident last weekend, when two young men on a motorbike broke through a barrier and rode in front of the peregrine nest on the watchpoint side of the gorge, although this behaviour was extremely reckless it was seemingly done with complete ignorance of the birds (despite our barriers and signage). Fortunately, unlike the Lowes incident, the peregrines where not disturbance and due to a immediate response from the Peregrine Ranger team, the situation was quickly resolved and handed over to the police.

After receiving the news that there had been a disturbance incident at Scottish Wildlife Trust  Loch of Lowes Osprey nest site. We have our own potential disturbance incident last weekend, when two young men on a motorbike broke through a barrier and rode in front of the peregrine nest on the watchpoint side of the gorge, although this behaviour was extremely reckless it was seemingly done with complete ignorance of the birds (despite our barriers and signage). Fortunately, unlike the Lowes incident, the peregrines where not disturbance and due to a immediate response from the Peregrine Ranger team, the situation was quickly resolved and handed over to the police.

The it got worse..

Where to start, with the Ross-shire Massacre now rising to 22 birds of prey (16 Red Kites and 6 Buzzards, 12 of which now confirmed poisoned, the rest still awaiting test results. Things have looked really grim for the area. For latest updates and further details, click the highlighted link above.

News of the really ugly side bird of prey persecution will have to wait till next blog, ill do my best to get it to you by the end of the week.

Hope to see you soon…

Adam Murphy – Peregrine Ranger