Over the past week we have watched our resident female diligently incubating her eggs whilst being soaked through from the relentless heavy showers that have recently been covering most of Scotland.

 As well as monitoring from the hide, there are various night vision cameras positioned around the nesting tree and around the feeding station at the visitor centre; one of the views is a nest box camera and throughout all the terrible weather the Blue Tit that’s in residency looked so snug and dry in comparison to the female Osprey out on the open eyrie.

 The Ospreys have now established a nice pattern whereby the male returns at first light to take over incubation duties, this allows the female time to go off and stretch her wings, clean and possibly even do a spot of fishing. These changeovers are very swift so that the eggs are never left uncovered for long.  Those of you who follow the webcam closely may have noticed that the male likes to fidget a lot more while he is incubating and has a funny habit of picking up small bits of nesting material and dropping them on his back.

 Friday morning was the first time all week we saw a ‘proper’ sunrise after the previous days of cloud and rain, a great orange ball rose over the east end of the loch sending light and warmth over the surface of the water.

 

 

First light is a really special time at Loch of the Lowes, as well as the Ospreys there is lots of other activity and noise on the loch including displaying Goldeneye and Great Crested Grebes, sightings of Moorhens, Coot and Jays and of course the dawn chorus made by all the little song birds waking up. One morning earlier in the week we were even lucky enough to catch sight of an Otter swimming right across the middle of the loch.

 Even in the middle of our night shifts there are many unique opportunity to observe wildlife. On our frequent night loch patrols we have seen large herds of both Fallow Deer and Roe Deer looking back at us in the dark as well as many Tawny Owls, whose calls we hear each dusk and dawn and to top it all off we have captured more fantastic footage of a Pine Marten on the camera trap.

 Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSPhvFPYKc&feature=youtu.be

 Douglas & Thomas         Species Protection Officers