Ospreys beginning to make their appearance known

Male Osprey

We have been studying our three cameras closely here at the Wildlife Watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of our Ospreys to see what they are up to. Although no activity has been noted on camera 2 since the beginning of April, our Green DX Male has been spotted on the nest on camera 1 twice in the past week.

Camera 3 has also seen regular activity with a Green ringed Female and an un-ringed Male appearing on the nest on a number of occasions. This looks very promising as we have witnessed a number of mating attempts. The female spends most of her day on the nest only departing when the male arrives with fish.

Our Pine Marten friends have also been making good use of the squirrel feeders onsite and have been regular visitors this week.

Good signs and a fair bit of nest activity from our birds. Hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of them in the coming weeks.

Eggs for Easter!

Hi Folks,
Hot off the press (or the TV screen!) our female osprey has just laid her 2nd egg of the season. It was laid at around 15.30 this afternoon (Monday 25th April). This is around 60 hours after the first which is normal for ospreys.

Unusually our male bird has taken quite a fancy to incubating the eggs!! This is considered the females role.

We will keep you posted over the next few days.

Robert

EGG NUMBER ONE!

I can now confirm that our unringed female has laid her first egg! It was spotted at 10.17am this morning (Saturday 23rd April). We believe it was laid at some point over night. Both male and female have been spotted incubating the egg this morning. We will keep you up to date over the next few days to let you know how things are going!

P.S. Also just to let you know our Barn Owl has successfully hatched all her five chicks!

Web cam up and running!

Just to let you all know that you can now watch the happenings of the Aberfoyle ospreys from the comfort of your home. Our online web cam is know up and running meaning up can keep up to date with the ospreys throughout the season. The camera will take a picture of the nest every 2 minutes between the hours of 10am and 5pm. These will automatically upload to the web page.

These images can be viewed at: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/forestry.nsf/byunique/infd-72ufv3

We are hoping that our female will be laying eggs soon, she has been showing signs over the last few days, so fingers crossed not long now!

Metal Ring Returns!

Today has seen the return of the "trouble maker" male osprey from last year, a metal ringed male. There have been a few unconfirmed sightings of a unringed male flying around the nest over the last few days but today we managed to get a good view of his legs! We aren't quite sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing as this particular male didn't show up until the 1st of May last year and this is what caused all the trouble, as we already had eggs by this point. We are hoping that seen as he has turned up earlier this year the two males can fight it out for the nest and female. He has been showing some unusual behaviour though, acting like he is already trying to kick eggs out the of nest; hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come! Yellow OU hasn't been spotted on the nest for the last two days. She is most likely just having a well deserved rest after her long migration and feeding up ready for the summer!

Osprey Update 4/4/11

Hi Folks, thought that I would give you all a quick update on how the ospreys are getting on after they returned to their nest on Thursday (31/3). Both Yellow OU and Green DX look like they are starting to settle back in. Our male bird obviously thinks he is going to be the next Carol Smiley as he has been spotted doing a lot of nest interior design over the weekend! He is also proving his worth with his fishing skills as we have had a good amount of trout brought into the nest.

Just some more information on the female that has been spotted on the nest: Yellow OU last bred on the nest in 2005 before being kicked off by Red 6A (our female from the last few years). We believe she was ringed in the Borders in 2003 and also, unusually, winters in Spain. This is where she has been trapped and has been seen every year. I will confirm this soon.

All this sounds lovely and peaceful but over the last few days the unringed male bird from last year has been spotted both on the nest trying to charm our female, and also perching on a tree next to nest!

More blog posts

In a change the way to we blog with year we are going to try and blog at least every couple of days to keep you all updated!

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.

Its not good news........but there is a sliver (ringed) lining!

Our resident male osprey (unringed) has not been seen for about 10 days now and at about the time he disappeared the female appeared to be sitting on eggs. As said in my previous post she is sitting tight most of the time but is getting on and off the nest to chase intruders. This is not good due to the risk to the eggs.

The silver-ringed male has at last been seen providing her with fish. He flew in on Monday with a fish, gave it to her and she flew off. He looked as if he was going to take over incubation but stood in the nest cup then didn't sit down. He poked around in the nest and I watched him with baited breath, half expecting any eggs in the nest to come flying out any minute. Instead he stood there for a moment then took off. The female was sitting in a dead tree to the left and sat there eating her fish for 5 minutes then flew down to the nest with the fish and continued to eat it there. I breathed a sigh of relief and was at least glad to see that she is getting fed. The silver-ringed bird continues to try and mate with her but she is not receptive.

On Tuesday a green-ringed bird landed on the nest and the silver-ringed bird was very quick to defend the female and the nest and actually locked talons with the intruding male. The female joined in quite aggressively and forced them both off the nest. I haven't seen such physical contact in a long time. Ospreys like most animals tend to avoid aggressive contact as it may result in injury; which can sometimes be too costly.

To say our female is having a hard time is to put it mildly, trying to incubate the unringed male's eggs, while trying to defend the nest, most of the time alone. The only good thing is she is actually being fed by the silver ringed male, which is allowing her, for the moment, to continue to sit tight.

I have asked that the cameras be switched from the overview camera to the nest cup camera so we can definitely see if we have eggs and how many. This hopefully should be done today or tomorrow. I'll let you know when I do.

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. :-)

Well, hello....!

This morning started with an empty nest but was soon filled by a fourth bird; an unringed osprey, which we thought was a male due to its very light markings. In a tree behind was a green ringed bird which we thought was the same one as yesterdays, which looked female due to a very brown chest patch. Then lo and behold, green ring flew down to the nest and landed on top of the unringed bird! Obviously identification by chest patches alone is not to be relied upon. Lol!

The unringed female was very receptive to advances with submissive posturing but poor green ring seemed out of his depth and tried to mate with her head! Then he landed beside her on the nest and adopted the mating posture of retracted talons and flat legs, with us thinking "but you have to get on top of her first!" Subsequent mating attempts proved just as bad with him approaching the female sideways and this remained the status for the rest of the day. He tried many times but no successful mating attempts occurred.

It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.