A cool, wet and rather dreary day today at Loch of the Lowes, in complete contrast to yesterdays stunning warm sunshine- which makes us so grateful that our male bird choose yesterday to leave the eggs undefended for an hour , not today!

Just the one fish delivery to the nest today by our male so far, though he did return with a second fish this afternoon which his mate didn’t seem interested in at all, so he took it away again.

Our Visitor centre mallard has hatched most of her 13 / 14 eggs and was seen leading them around the feeding station earlier- though trying to count that many ducklings isn’t easy!

 Both our webcams should now be returned to normal after 24hrs of disruption: our volunteer camera technician Lindsay has done a valiant job today rewiring a lot of our camera connections, and ruling out causes of the periodic interference we’ve been having. The result is a vastly improved picture, but alas not perfect yet – there are still a few more tweaks to try! Thanks so much Lindsay!

 Many of our staff, including myself , really do deserve the title “osprey addicts” as we have not only worked at several of the other UK osprey projects over the years, and have many friends within them, but we often visit them on our holidays too! Today we are eagerly waiting for news from our friends at the Tweed Valley Osprey Project in the Scottish Borders of their first hatching, and our colleagues at Rutland Water Ospreys believe they have just seen the first signs of hatching tonight at their Manton Bay nest. Fingers crossed for all the birds, and for all our friends at the many other Osprey sites, for a successful hatching season.

Ranger Emma