Events from the nest

It is now 70 days since the third egg was laid on the 19^th of April and our Osprey pair continue to incubate. It was observed at another Osprey site that the adults continued to incubate up to a month after the eggs were expected to hatch. Here at Loch of the Lowes we are all watching to learn what our resident Ospreys do. We have noticed that the eggs are beginning to be left unattended more regularly.

At 9.51am our male,7Y, who was incubating at the time left the nest until 10.30am when he returned with a stick. Then at 11.00am 7Y left the nest again, this time eggs were only left unattended for 4 minutes until our female returned to the nest to continue incubating. The male returned at 12.11pm with another stick but did not stay. Our female remained on incubation duty and could be heard calling while the male was seen perched in a nearby tree. Throughout the early afternoon the female turned the eggs twice. At 3.33pm 7Y arrived at the nest with a small perch which our female took and flew off with at which point the male also left the nest meaning the 3 eggs were left unattended again till 3.52pm when our female returned. Half an hour later, at 4.22pm, the male once again brought a stick to the nest, at which point the female left the nest closely followed by her mate. The eggs are still unattended at 4.55pm.

A question we recently received by our dedicated Osprey email ospreys@swt.org.uk asked whether our male Osprey has his own nest. Ospreys are site faithful and will return to the same nest site year on year and where possible commit to the same mate.

Other wildlife at Loch of the Lowes:

From the hides today we have had sightings of: great crested grebe, mute swans, Canada geese, mallards, sand martins and swallows. There have also again been sightings of fallow deer.

At the feeding stations there have been: pheasants, great spotted woodpecker, blue tits, coal tits, great tits, chaffinches, gold finches, siskins and a red squirrel.

Thomas Smits