What a beautiful day here at Loch of the Lowes- despite it still being on the cool side and the occasional gusts of strong wind- nothing as bad as the gales over the weekend, which made me feel seasick watching the webcam!

Both our birds have incubated today, with the male still very keen on doing shifts on the nest -this morning, the female had to give his tail a tug to get him to stand up and let her resume incubation duties. There was a fish delivery by the male to the nest at 1.40pm – another Pike.

 There has also been more nesting material brought back to the nest- notably today large pieces of bark by the female. I have been away to a meeting at our sister Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve Spey Bay in Moray overnight ( what a fabulous place, watching Ospreys fishing in the waves, otters, seals and dolphins!)  I certainly noticed how much change there had been on the nest when I came back, with lots of new sticks. We have had lots of discussion about whether or not the Ospreys have been building up the sides of the nest to shelter themselves from the wind or in preparation for hatching, to keep chicks safely contained- perhaps it is a bit of both.

Elsewhere on the reserve, we have had several sightings over the weekend of our local Fallow Deer herd, including the wonderful white hind- a leucistic individual. Here’s a photo by Thomas Plant one of our Species Protection Officer taken today:

 

We have set up one of our camera traps one of the deer’s regular ‘footpaths’ through our woodlands to hopefully share some images with you soon. Lastly, we have had a nighttime sighting of a fox on the reserve- only the second this year, so that’s nice to see too.