Events from the nest today:

After the blog was posted yesterday, our male osprey brought another large fish to the nest at 8.30pm. Our female then flew away with the fish, leaving her mate, 7Y, to incubate again. However, at 9.20pm our female could be seen returning to the eggs to continue incubation. Through the night hours, our female could be seen regularly turning the eggs before our male took over incubation duties at 4.45am. After a period just short of 2 hours, our female returned to incubate at 6.40am for one hour, until her mate returned at 7.43am. Changeovers in incubation duties continued throughout the morning, when at 9.39am another osprey was seen in the area. At this time 7Y left the nest to chase away the intruder while our female returned to take over incubation duties. Within a minute, a fourth osprey was in the vicinity – again 7Y chased away the intruder.

 A question we received via ospreys@swt.org.uk asked about the calls our female osprey has been making. The majority of the calls made by our female during her time spent on the nest are intended to encourage her mate to catch a fish.  This is repetitive and can be described as ‘squeaky’ in comparison to a louder and more intimidating ‘alarm call’. The alarm call alerts an osprey’s mate of any looming danger such as an intruding osprey or buzzard that may be a threat to the eggs or chicks. Roy Dennis (author of ‘A Life of Ospreys’) has noted that the alarm call becomes “particularly explosive when the osprey spots a real threat such as a golden eagle or goshawk”.  Male ospreys are known to have a higher pitch when calling in comparison to female ospreys, and there is some further individual variation with some ospreys being more vocal in general, while others tend to call with greater volume.  

Other queries we have received via ospreys@swt.org.uk have been regarding the satellite tracking programme. Full details of this can be found on our dedicated webpage; so for answers to any of your questions, follow this link:

http://www.swt.org.uk/wildlife/ospreys-at-lowes/osprey-tracking/ 

For any more queries into our ospreys that you may have, check our dedicated FAQ page and see if you can find the answer you are looking for:

http://www.swt.org.uk/wildlife/ospreys-at-lowes/frequently-asked-questions/

Other wildlife at Loch of the Lowes:

A pair of great crested grebes was seen again on the loch this morning, along with 4 mute swans, a Canada goose, several mallards, and a goosander.

Elsewhere on the reserve were our regular visitors:  pheasants, great spotted woodpeckers, a robin, blue tits, coal tits, great tits, chaffinches, a greenfinch, siskins and a yellowhammer. Once again, a red squirrel was seen entering the box feeder from the viewing window in the Visitor Centre here at Loch of the Lowes – much to the delight of visitors who enjoyed watching its feeding behaviour and movements.

Anna

Perthshire Reserves Seasonal Ranger