Ospreys

A few from Loch of the Lowes today.

Snippit from the blog:
What a day our first Osprey chick of 2012 has had- its first 24hrs of life filled with new experiences and excitement! The wee chick has been trying to get its’ coordination – never easy when your head is as large as the rest of you and your feet are huge. Young chicks always seem to find holding their heads up hard at first, but this will soon improve- this chick is showing completely normal signs so far.

There have been three fish deliveries today (well done dad!) and the wee one has had a tiny share of each- not regurgitated or pre-chewed, just tiny bits of raw fish served delicately by mum. Sometimes it seemed to take a while for the two of them to ‘line up’ with the chick mistiming putting its head up with mums reaching in with fish- but in the end they coordinated things and it has had plenty to eat( crucial as the fish also provides its hydration). You will notice that the female hasn’t taken fish away from the nest to eat today: instead she has been stashing her share on the nest to give the wee one tiny feeds often- just like any infant animal.

It has been amazingly warm here today so the female osprey has been using her body as a sunshield for some of the day, sheltering the wee chick, whilst still keeping the other two eggs safely covered. We have not yet seen any signs of the other eggs hatching – this is not really expected until tomorrow for egg number 2 and later in the week for 3.

Add to all this the drama of having an intruder osprey land on or near the nest twice today- to a furious reaction from our female as you would expect- as it’s been a big day. We suspect we have a serial offender involved with these intrusions (probably a juvenile) and though it is not targeting the eggs or chicks deliberately, these could be collateral damage in any squabble on the nest so we can do without them!


Anyway - Everything was going on so far away today but here's a few fairly brutal crops that escaped the delete button

Resident Male


Resident female on the nest, resident male and intruder male


Three's a crowd


Resident and Intruder male (female bottom left)


Fish Delivery






And the old bird herself - she left the nest a couple of times for bit of a foot spa. Again she was keeping her distance so not the best.

Lovely set Phil.
Remember watching a doc about Peter Scott a few months ago and they were mentioning on it how well the Ospreys are doing up there, think they were centering on the Caerlaverock Ospreys. Beautiful birds. Hopefully they will eventually spread out further afield.

Great read and some gorgeous images here Phil, i think these birds are amazing, we luckily got to see a couple when we visited scotland several years ago and it certainly has made me want to return for another visit

Fantastic series of shots Phil, It looks like you had some cracking conditions too. The Blog snippits were an enjoyable read, thanks.

Cracking birds of prey, now breeding in Northumberland. i was seeing them for years at a migration route to Scotland, but with help from our local Forestry commission, some lingered and now breed in the county.

One of my favourite birds to photograph, but only ever seen them on migration. These are great shots Phil!

xx

Thanks folks. The first chick that hatched on Monday was her 48th chick from 62 eggs laid ober the last 22 years or so. There's still 2 eggs in the nest due to hatch anytime so with a bit of luck she may just make it to the magical 50 !


Thanks. We have about 40 Ospreys in the area now (bit of a hot spot) but the female at LOTL is a bit special.

Well it's hot and sunny just now

Very warm Ken. I had to laugh as a friend of mine was up last week and it was 6'C compared to 27'C today

So I believe. It's good to see them spreading again.

Thanks - they're not the easiest to photograph at LOTL due to the distances but it's still nice to be there watching them.

the third image nailed it imo. great composition and love how the osprey were framed between the trees.

brilliant Phil brilliant

Cheers guys

If anybody is interested - egg number 3 is now hatching.
Egg number 2 is past it's due date so probably won't.
Chick 1 has grown so much and is doing great.

If egg 3 hatches and both chicks go on to fledge, they would be her 49th & 50th fledglings !

http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/...loch-of-lowes/

http://blogs.scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/osprey/

Edit Updated Wednesday

We have not given up hope altogether as it has been known occasionally for eggs to take longer than 24hrs to hatch, but it is looking increasingly less likely. Not only have the cracks in the eggs not gotten any bigger, there has not been any more movement visible by a chicks beak at the hole, and the female’s behaviour has also changed. She was almost frantically restless yesterday evening, as she presumably responded to the sounds of the chick moving inside the egg, but she has since grown much calmer. It is normal for ospreys ( and most other birds) not to help the chick out of the egg- hatching must take place slowly and naturally for the chick to survive.

Why these eggs haven’t hatched is a difficult question. If we presume that they were both fertile, it is possible that the chicks inside were too weak to hatch or that the egg shells were too hard for them to be able to break through due to hot dry weather.

Despite our disappointment we must focus on the fact that we have one healthy and very strong chick who is doing brilliantly- and that in itself is an important achievement for our birds.

Today this wee one has been doing brilliantly, actually waddling over to the male to peck at the fish- a bold confident chick indeed. The male osprey has brought in four fish so far today, but the last at around 7.20 pm caused quite a stir: the large Pike was brought in alive by the male to the nest, and he had serious problems releasing it from his talons despite the female grabbing it greedily. In the struggle, the fish got loose and it was still alive so flip flopped around the nest and almost flattened the wee chick several times- despite it being very comical the wee one was at serious risk, so the male promptly removed the fish from the nest and brought it back 20mins latter with the head removed- a much safer dinner!