Monday 31 May 2010

3RD EGG HAS HATCHED!

Today I am reporting something that I never thought I would be saying this season. Our 3rd osprey egg has HATCHED! It was discovered this morning so we believe it hatched at some point over the weekend! Mother and chicks all seem to be doing well.

We are going to be running a competition to name this years chicks, so watch this space for details!

Saturday 29 May 2010

Another osprey chick sees daylight!

Today the second osprey egg has been spotted on the nest. This means that because of the delay of recording the osprey nest the 2nd egg hatched on the 26th May at around 1pm. This is because the latest nest does not have a live linkto the David Marshall Lodge. Also we can only record up to 4 hours of footage at a time and because of this it does take us sometime to discover new happenings on the nest. Please bear with us.

The male osprey is living up to his job of bringing in fish with a plentiful supply of fish for both mother and children arrving at the nest throughout the day. On the other cameras in the Wildlife Viewing room we now have 3 very cute fluffy buzzard chicks, 2 fluff balls that are Barn Owl chicks and a plentiful supply of Great Tit chicks of which some are getting ready to fledge the nest.

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Hatching Galour!

After the events so for this season we never thought that we would see this day but this morning at around 10.15am the first osprey chick was spotted.
The chick was spotted on our back-up camera when the disc was been swooped over this morning. At the time the female, who has still not been identified was feeding the chick its first breakfast. We are now all eagerly awaiting the hatching of the second egg.

Also over the weekend we spotted the first of our Buzzards chicks and even though the camera is a bit fuzzy at the moment we beleive the mother and chick are both doing well. In the last few weeks the Great Tit eggs have also hatched with two nests on camera in the Wildlife Room. They have both had 6 chicks each. Why not pop in and see the new editions to our family?

Monday 17 May 2010

All is not lost!

Earlier last week we broke the news that the 3rd and final egg had been kicked out of the nest. There was maybe some slight hope in some of us that the female may lay again but unfortunately she hasn't been seen on the nest since.
But all is not lost... we now have a camera on a never before seen nest at the David Marshall Lodge. This camera isn't live but is this season and from the Aberfoyle area. This means that we are still able to watch the happenings of a osprey couple for the rest of the season. :-)
The new pair haven't yet been identified and we are still unsure of how many eggs the female bird is incubating, but we are hoping that this nest will have a more successful season than the last one!

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Bad news

Today has been a day that we all hoped wouldn't happen. The third egg has been evicted from the nest. It was discovered this morning at around 10.00am. The intruder male was seen on the nest yesterday afternoon and was trying his best to get rid of the third egg and at some point in the early hours of this morning he was successful. But the egg can still be seen on the camera; it is currently wedged on what must be a little ledge on the nest.

This is a disappointment for the second year running with this nest, but we are still hoping that the small chance of the new pair mating may still happen. Let's all keep our finger crossed!

Monday 10 May 2010

A roller coaster ride

Last week was a roller coaster of a ride for the ospreys at Aberfoyle. With the original male returning on Monday we hoped that everything would get back to normal for the osprey pair - minus 2 eggs of course. But this was not to happen; the intruder male has been showing up on the nest every now and again, which has been causing the female to get extremly angry! He has also had a few more attempts to get rid of the 3rd and final egg - unsuccessfully you will all be happy to hear!

As I wrote this the original male was away fishing and the female was sat on the one remaing egg, so hopefully in ther next few weeks we will see the one and only chick of the 2010 season!

Fingers crossed.

Tuesday 4 May 2010

The Ups and Downs of Being an Osprey

As of last week, the resident ospreys here at Aberfoyle had laid 3 eggs. This was looking good for the rest of the season, but everything was about to change...

On Saturday 1st May at around 12.00pm, a metal-ringed male entered the nest which the female was sat on, incubating the eggs. This shocked us all as it indicated that the resident male (Ringed - Green DX) has been in a fight and lost. Over the course of the day, as we expected, the new male tried his best to destroy the 3 eggs that were in the nest. He successfully managed to kicked one of the eggs out and smash the other!

The male continued to try to destroy the last remaining egg on Sunday, and on Monday morning, we thought that he had succeeded! But again, everything was about to change...

At around dinnertime on Monday a familiar figure appeared on the side of the nest. It was the original male, back to fight for his female and nest, and he was successful! We also discovered that there are still signs of a egg in the nest

This leaves us all here at The David Marshall Lodge holding onto our hats for the next episode. As I write this the female (Ringed Red 6A) is sat on the one remaining egg. Whether it is damaged or not we are unsure, but with all our fingers crossed we are hoping that the ospreys can get back on track with breeding.