Our young Osprey Blue 44 is certainly being spoilt by his father who is still providing food- at the grand old age of 14 weeks and a day, this chick is more than capable of fishing for itself but why bother when you can beg dad for your meals? A nice big trout was delivered this afternoon to the nest, but interestingly the chick finished eating it on one of his favorite perches around the loch rather than on the nest- sightings here are definitely on the wane.

In fact we were beginning to wonder if our adult male osprey had in fact left to start his migration as we hadn’t seen him on the nest for over 24hrs, but then he turned up around 3pm today with a large whole brown trout. Usually adult male ospreys leave around this time most years but this is a new male and we don’t yet know what is normal for him in terms of timings.

 The loch level is getting very very high with all the torrential rain we’ve been having, but the raft of Tufted Duck, Mute Swans and Great Crested Grebe don’t seem to mind one bit.

Elsewhere on the reserve today we’ve had sightings of a lovely flock of Long-tailed Tits and a new Roe Deer fawn (ill-advisedly running on the road) as well as the tell tale footprints on a Pine Marten in the mud in the carpark overnight! The Rowan and Bird Cherry trees in the woods are berrying up – which is always a tell tale sign that summer is coming to an end and autumn is on the way- hard to believe! On our way to our smallest reserve Brerachan meadow to do some botanical and butterfly monitoring today, we were treated to the spectacular view of the Scottish moors in full bloom: Heather, Ling and Scabious flowers creating a sea of purple across the hills, a glorious sight to round off the summer.