Still no egg hatching at Loch of the Lowes osprey nest -yet. Everyone has been asking us if we are worried or have given up hope and the short answer is : NO!  I have been joking that the eggs have been waiting until Ranger Emma is back from sick leave ( today) until they hatch -so it should be anytime now!

Today is only  day  40 f0r egg number one , day  37 for egg number two and day 34  for egg number three. Bearing in mind the normal incubation range is 35-40 days, you can see we are still well within normal parameters. It is impossible to be 100% certain which egg was lost in the crow attack ( though we have our strong suspicions) so we are keeping an open mind  and there is still plenty of time for egg two or three to hatch.

Whilst we have not been seeing a lot of behavioural changes in the adults ( such as head titling and listening to the eggs)  these can be very subtle and are not a very reliable indicator of hatching being close.

Lots of people have been asking if the birds know the eggs are not viable and if this explains why they have left them more often this year. We think this is highly unlikely as, if the eggs were unviable, the birds wouldn’t bother incubating them at all- ospreys have often been known to remove damaged eggs from the nest.

Blue YD our young satellite tracked osprey is back in the UK and we will bring you news of his further adventures as soon as we get it. The transmitter  has now moved to a cycle of uploading data every four days so we will bring you more information as soon as we have it.

Ranger Emma