Good afternoon all,

Events from the nest today:

Today has been a somewhat eventful day at the nest. At 08:55 this morning, our male osprey was seen flying up the loch towards the nest tree with what appeared to be a large trout in his talons. However, the fish seemed to be too heavy for him to carry up to the nest and so he landed with it at the base of a Scots pine not far from the nest tree. Several crows began to mob him where he had landed, eventually causing him to abandon his catch to them. He made several attempts to chase them away but eventually gave up at 09:25. At 14:10, our male finally brought in a headless perch to the nest, which the female took hungrily, being her first meal of the day.

At 16:35, two interlopers were seen flying over the nest. The male chose not to attempt to chase them away but instead landed on the nest in order to guard it with the female until the danger had passed. Later at 16:55, a buzzard that also came too close to the nest was seen off by our male.

The intervening time has been peaceful on the nest with our female osprey continuing with her incubation duties. The first egg is likely to hatch at some point tomorrow and so we are monitoring the eggs closely for any signs of this taking place.

Other Wildlife at Loch of the Lowes:

A pair of great crested grebes was spotted out on the water today, along with two mute swans, several mallard and a Canada goose.

At the viewing window, two pheasant were seen, along with three great spotted woodpeckers, three greenfinch, a siskin, two dunnock, a robin, a blackbird, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, a tree creeper and large number of chaffinches. A red squirrel was also seen at one of the peanut feeders.

The dunnock is an occasional visitor to our feeding area. But tends to shy away from the spotlight and prefers to feed on the ground, picking up the seed dropped by other birds such as chaffinch and great tits on the feeders above. With features resembling a member of the sparrow family, these small, brown and rather nondescript birds are often found hopping about in dense undergrowth and hedgerows, giving them the nickname ‘hedge sparrow’.

Simon

SITA Species Protection Officer