Osprey's return for 2012 Season!

As many of you may have read the Aberfoyle Osprey season is just about to begin. This year for the first time ever we are showing three live nests, two of which are being shown through HD. We have already had ospreys on all three nests and signs of attempted mating between pairs.

On nest site 1 (the nest that we have shown in previous years) we have already seen the return of Red 6A (our female from 2006 - 2010) who failed to return to the nest at the beginning of the 2011 season, but was seen on site later in the year. She seems to have been joined by a metal ringed male, whom we presume is the infamous male from the last few years.

For those of you that want to follow the action minute by minute we will be tweeting @aberfoyleosprey and also Facebooking at www.facebook.com/aberfoyleospreys. We are also hoping to get the webcam link up and running this week, sorry for the delay in this :-)

Other sightings and live cameras currently on show at the David Marshall Lodge Visitor Centre include Barn Owls, Red Squirrels and for the last few weeks we have been catching a glimpse of a Pine Marten, but we are keeping our eyes fixed on the osprey nests as another season at Aberfoyle begins!

A new female for Aberfoyle ospreys?

As reported last week, since the return of our "trouble maker" bird from last season, neither yellow OU nor green DX have been spotted on the nest. Instead, the metal-ringed male osprey was seen on his own waiting for the return of last year's female, Red 6A. She still hasn't returned but the male's attention now seems to have been diverted to a new younger model in the shape of a 4 year old female, ringed white HA, who arrived on the nest on Friday. All we know about this new female is that she was hatched in the Tweed Valley, Scottish Borders in 2007. It is not especially unusual for female ospreys to venture slightly further afield from their birthplace in the hunt for a suitable nesting location. Hopefully white HA and metal ring are going to be our resident couple for the season as we have already had 4 different ospreys on the nest in the last 10 days! As many of you know there is also live viewing of Ospreys in the Tweed Valley. You can check out their blog at: http://tweedvalleyospreys.blogspot.com/ P.S One of our barn owl eggs has hatched, only four to go!

Ospreys have landed!

We can now confirm that ospreys have returned! At around 9.45am this morning Yellow OU, our female from a few year back, and Green DX were spotted back on our live nest site! They have already been seen mating and sorting out the nest. Yellow OU has not been seen on this nest site for number of years, and successfully raised chicks here back in 2005. Red 6A our usual female hasn't been seen yet, and neither has our troublemaker from last year, the metal ringed male! I think there are still a few more twists and turns in the story before we even see eggs being incubated. Stay tuned for more info!

Lights, camera, action!

It's that time of year again! Our Osprey cameras are back up and running. Hurray! I have to admit that it brought back a lot of memories from last year when I saw the nest on camera today - Red 6A, Green DX, the intruder metal ringed bird, our change of nests half way through the season, Ozzy, Jemima and Fred and the many fish! I wonder what they have in store for us this year?

We are still awaiting on the arrival of our ospreys (as some of you will know, EJ from Loch Garten has already returned) but hopefully this should be within the next week. The David Marshall Lodge is now fully open so put down your newspapers, finish the housework and pop in and see how we are getting on.

Most of our other live cameras are up and running too, including our Barn Owl Box, where our female is currently sat on 5 eggs!

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.

Local male returns

Our male has now been identified as DX Green confirming that it is the bird that was ringed locally about 5 years ago.

Over the last few days Red 6A had been showing signs of laying, and our waiting finally paid off yesterday as she laid her first egg!

Our new male does seem to be getting a little confused though, as it looks like he wants to incubate rather than catch fish! Hopefully he will come to his senses before too long.

We wait in earnest for the 2nd egg....

Returned birds - more details

Both the returned birds are colour ringed.  As mentioned in the previous post, the female is the familiar red 6A who we have seen on the nest for a number of years. The male is new but is also wearing a colour ring.  It looks like green OX but might be green DX. It looks as if this might be a bird that was ringed locally in 2005 but we need to confirm the ring details first!

The male has been busy providing fish for red 6A and no other birds have been seen competing for the nest as yet!

Red 6A is back!

Just a quick update to say our female red 6A is back on the nest with a new mate whose identity is yet to be confirmed. The new male is busy trying to impress our female with lots of fresh fish and has also brought plenty of sticks to spruce up the tired nest.

Help celebrate the ospreys return

Why not help us celebrate the return of the ospreys this Saturday, 17th April, at David Marshall Lodge.  Plenty of family activities - see the return of the ospreys information on the Forestry Commission Scotland website.

It's very quiet now.

The last ospreys were seen at the nest site on the 28th August, where a lone bird was sitting in trees at the back of the nest. The preceding week there had been up to three ospreys hanging round the trees at the back, making it quite difficult to identify them as, even with maximum zoom, we couldn't make out their rings.
Red 6A was identified on the 23rd Aug which would have meant she was here alot later than last year, as she had left by the 6th Aug in 2008. There was also a green ringed bird which we assumed to be the new male but since we had alot of green ringed birds sighted this year we cannot be certain.
One of the birds that had been sitting at the back was practising some nest building techniques by flying in and taking a couple of swoops at the nest to pull out long sticks. It was quite interesting to watch this, as ospreys would use this technique to collect sticks for a nest but would normally use a dead tree to swoop down on.
Today on the nest a flock of blue and great tits landed on the nest and were rooting about for something to eat. Once they had left a lone Dunnock sat perched on one of the twigs for a while surveying all below.
And so ends another osprey season. Who will return next year now our resident male has gone? Will it be the immature green ring that didnt impress the female or will she take on a new partner for life? Unfortunately we will now have to wait until 2010 to have these questions answered.

Ospreys-a farewell?

Red 6A (our female) was still around as of the 1st August. Last year she was last seen about the 6th before she off on her migration.

The green ringed male is also still around and still defending the nest.

I had an osprey First Flight, First Splash event at the weekend and took 12 people down to the Lake of Menteith to see if we could see an osprey fishing. Luck was on our side as 2 ospreys were present when we arrived. However, they simply displayed territorial behaviour until one took off. The first osprey then sat in a tree for a good half hour then suddenly plunged into the water for food. Our group was very happy; several hadn't even seen an osprey before, never mind seeing one fish. Even the rain stayed off until it was time to leave.

Other events coming up soon are two bird of prey talks. On the 14th Aug at 7pm, Mike McDonnell will talk about Red Kites at David Marshall Lodge, and on the 28th Aug, Elaine Fraser will talk about the Sea Eagle Reintroduction in the North East of Scotland.

To book call 01877 382258 or email: andrea.williams@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

All quiet on the osprey front.....

Its still been fairly quiet on our nest but Red 6A is still in evidence. We have had some nice shots of her feeding herself on the dead trees to either side of the nest. We wouldnt really see this so much at this time of the year normally as she would be staying at the nest feeding the chicks. The green ringed male is still about and an unringed bird has been coming and going intermittently. No new rings have been sighted and things seem to be quietening down again. In fact there has been some nest building going on! Both male and female have been bringing in new material to the nest. Ospreys have been known to build frustration eeyries when breeding has failed, so maybe this is kind of like that.

I can't keep up!

Our ospreys have rarely been at the nest the past 2 weeks. When there have been ospreys on the nest it has been our Red 6A female and Green-ringed male. He has been trying to mate with her but she has been reticent to stay near the nest.

Today however, was the best sightings I have seen of the birds all week. And there was a surprise in store. A pair of ospreys were on the nest alarm calling and mantling against and intruder osprey and I was trying to identify who was who on the nest. Yes, there was the female Red 6A and surely the male was the green-ringed male but I couldnt see the Darvic. Later on I realised why, when I saw he had no Darvic ring but only a metal ring. Welcome back the silver ringed male. The 2 birds mated and the female was hanging around the nest alot more than normal, so hopefully this will be a positive sign.

Bad news...

Yesterday an osprey egg was found on the ground near to the osprey nest. So as suspected it looks like green-ring has kicked the unringed males egg(s) out the nest. The egg was showing signs of predation so whether this was done after being kicked out or was in fact the real reason behind the eggs disappearance, we'll never know.

Red 6A and the green-ringed male have been on the nest very intermittently today and never together. Hopefully our female will hold off until the cold weather is over until laying a new clutch of eggs. If she hasnt done this by the end of May, then its pretty much game over for this season.

Confused? You will be!

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog but things have been rather confusing of late. On the 17th April the female looked good for laying an egg but there hadn't been a changeover; normally the first definite behaviour that there is an egg. Then midweek the unringed male (our resident bird) seemed to have vanished!

Shortly after that we had various other birds coming into the nest including a green-ringed bird and a silver-ringed male. The silver-ringed male seems to have taken over the female and is seen with fish, but it's uncertain as to whether the female is being fed by him or by another male.

The silver-ringed bird keeps attempting to mate with Red 6A but is always unsuccessful. Red 6A, although she appears to have an egg in the nest (she looks like she is incubating and turning an egg), is also leaving the nest for short periods probably because her regular male is not around. Today is not proving to shed any light as the female is tight on the nest due to the heavy rain and no other birds have been seen. Hopefully this week will clarify things and won't result in an egg being kicked out the nest!

All change... again!

The mating between Red 6A and the green-ringed male was improving and seemed to be going well all week. He was adding the occassional branch to the nest and bringing in fish, although I was a bit surprised by his laissez-faire attitude.

Then on Saturday, as soon as the cameras were on, it was an unringed male who was on the nest and green ring was nowhere to be seen. Was this our original bird or another unringed male? The fact our female was so relaxed with him indicated the former, and on checking footage from 2007, it is indeed our resident male. He is quite distinctive as he has 2 stripes coming up from each eye to the top of his head. A marking I have never seen before in another osprey.

It's funny how when you have resident birds together their behaviour just gels and things progress so much faster. This male is on a mission and keeps bringing stick after stick back to the nest. After being off for 2 days I notice a definite improvement in the nest; it is much more formed and is greener, having been lined with moss and lichen. The male has been successfully mating with the female all week and bringing numerous fish to her, including a jack pike. Now that this male is in, things seemed to have settled down on the nest with no other ospreys venturing in for a while now.

Now we can get on with the business in hand!

Menage a ...quatre?

On Monday when Red 6A arrived, the green ringed male tried to mate with her but she was having none of it and kept shrugging him off. She then did have a successful mating, but with which male we are unsure. It seemed too adept to be the green-ringed male and shortly after this mating he did try and was shrugged off again.

On Tuesday there was alot of to and fro'ing on the nest by Red 6A and the green-ringed male, with quite a few sticks brought in.

On Wednesday we finally got to see a fish being brought in by the green-ringed male. He was sitting eating it quite happily at the top of the nest when he dropped it. Red 6A, not one to miss an opportunity, nipped in and took the fish off to a nearby tree to eat it.

Shortly after when Red 6A was on the nest with green ring, another 2 birds joined the proceedings; the silver ringed male and an unringed bird. The latter was thought to be a male due to Red 6A's lack of response but could have been the previously unringed female. Talk about confusing!

Today there has been much nest building going on by Red 6A and green ring. However, although he keeps trying to mate with Red 6A, any attempt has been unsuccessful.

Nice to see you, to see you...

Well the nest was very quiet until midday when the unringed female appeared with the green ringed male and mating took place; more successfully than yesterday. The unringed female was food soliciting and the male kept flying off but was unsure as to what to do. So he returned with some moss and dried grass. Good boy!

Then at 2pm, the unringed female landed on the nest and was immediately chased off by another bird. A quick zoom revealed it was Red 6A! Welcome back our resident female, living up to her reputation of not standing for interlopers on her nest. :-)