Great news this afternoon as it looks like the process of hatching has begun for one of the remaining two eggs on the osprey nest at Loch of the Lowes. Staff noticed a tiny hole in one of the eggs this afternoon, and the tell tale tiny egg tooth of the chick moving beneath. As the evening has progressed the crack running out from this hole has been getting bigger, and we have noticed the usual behavioural changes in our female osprey too- lots of listening, shuffling and fretting over the hatching egg, as well as her rather wiggly older chick.

We believe the egg that is hatching is the third egg ( today is day 38 of incubation for this egg) and not likely to be egg number two, which it looks like wasn’t viable. We will be over the moon of this chick manages to hatch successfully and if it makes it through the first few critical weeks, and survives to fledging it could be our female ospreys 50^th fledgling- a remarkable achievement.

Here is a picture from this evening of the egg thatching underway.