Another exciting day for our young Osprey Blue 44 today with a dramatic intruder encounter and two live fish to deal with on the nest, delivered by Dad. It is a good sign that our youngster is dealing so capably with live prey: it is also likely his father is encouraging him to tackle his own fish this way. There is not doubt that our chick is hungry and demanding to boot: when his father delivers fish, is it isn’t handed over instantly, dad gets a good few pecks at this feet from that sharp beak.

This afternoon, the staff heard an unusual, aggressive osprey call and were in time to see our chick being chased by a very determined intruder osprey, which seemed intent on harrying him and stooped to dive on him from a height. Our young Blue 44 got away safely but obviously got a bit of a fright- and quite why an intruder would show this kind of aggression is a bit of a mystery (though not unheard of).

In other wildlife news at Loch of the Lowes, our Great Crested grebe chick ( from the Lily-pad nest)  is growing up fast and is nearly adult size, though still with the comical black and white plumage- seen today on the loch by Lindsey.

We have been getting great sightings around the western shore woods of a lovely Roe deer doe and her calf at foot – especially on our trail camera trap. No further sign of our Beaver visitor on the loch, though we have had a report from a nearby adjacent loch on Tuesday so perhaps it is cruising the area to chose the right place to set up home. Mary Rattray has kindly given us permission to publish her photo of its visit to Loch of the Lowes last Friday:

 

 Your ranger team have been having a minor celebration this afternoon (ice-cream and cake!), after finishing the mammoth task of clearing invasive weed Himalayan Balsam from our twoTummelShingleIslandreserves. These riverside wetlands are prone to this weed washing in on floodwaters and it seriously threatens their amazing biodiversity. This task has taken us many weeks of work, in boggy, scratchy and prickly terrain over nearly 40 hectares- what an achievement! If you see this weed growing on burns, streams or riversides, please help the campaign to remove it to protect our native riparian flora and fauna.