Egg-citing times!

But elsewhere, it's all drama…

I thought this was going to be a drama newsletter, leading on the budding romance at Loch of the Lowes.

But no.

Laddie’s love life will have to wait, as Maya and 33 steal the limelight again with — an egg!

Just before 9pm on Sunday night, Maya laid her first egg of the season:

With many nests still awaiting returning birds, it’s exciting to see last year’s super breeders cracking on, especially as the existence of the egg was confirmed this morning.

Lovelorn at Lowes

So, back to Lowes. The resident female there — an unringed bird known as Lassie — is late. She’ll be nearly a week late by the time you read this. Her mate, known as Laddie, has been on the nest a while. And he’s been courting. A couple of days ago a young, ringed female with the ring Blue NC0 started spending time on the nest.

Osprey expert Roy Dennis’s has told us that she is a young female, ringed in either 2016 or 2017 in Easter Ross, and we’ve contacted the ringer to see if we can find out more.

It would be fair to say the budding relationship is off to a rocky start. He’s been more interested in mating, than in providing fish. And that actually led to a fight over a fish on Sunday evening:

She’s a feisty young bird - if she ends up as Laddie’s mate this season, we could be in for a nail-biting time, as it might well be her first time as a mother. But perhaps Lassie will still return and claim her nest.

Talking of claiming the nest, another male made a dive-bomb run at the nest, but seems to have been escorted away by Laddie:

Just to add to the drama, the courting couple were disturbed by, of all things, a kayaker. They were breaking multiple laws - social distancing, approaching an osprey nest, using that loch…. The situation has been dealt with, apparently:

Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve @LochoftheLowes

Today our ospreys were flushed from their nest for over 2 hours by a kayaker. Ospreys are legally protected from any kind of disturbance & our reserve is monitored 24hrs a day, including by CCTV We ask that members of the public do not access the reserve at this time. Thank you

Other Nests

• Dyfi has its nest streaming up and running, but it’s been a challenge…

• Rutland’s 4K and S1 are both still migrating.

• At Glaslyn, Mrs G has mainly been jousting with crows, while waiting for Aran to return. But she missed a visitor to her nest…

• Kielder’s birds are returning - White YA was the first.

• The Osprey Nest at Hafren Forest by Clywedog Reservoir, Wales has a livestream - but no ospreys (yet)

• 7A is back at Esthwaite. And so is Mrs O.

• Blue KC has joined Black 80 at Threave.

• Covid-19 has stopped work at Loch Garten - here’s where it was left. Hopefully any news about the nest will come from their new podcast.

• Blue 35 and (presumably) mate are back at Foulshaw Moss:

  Foulshaw Ospreys @Foulshaw2

  Haven't seen a leg ring, but they just mated then he went straight off to the shed (the perching tree). The behaviour of an established couple.

• And who's this?

  River Gwash Ospreys @GwashOspreys

  Zoom in to find out which Osprey has been the star of today’s video! It’s the first time she’s fished with us and she’s been in no hurry to leave. 28/10 keeps us waiting another day

  

Elsewhere

• A long blog post about the relationship between Rutland and Urdaibai in Spain.

• The Lake District’s 14 is enjoying a stop-over in Niger, before passing Sardinia. There’s loads of other posts there, detailing his journey.

• Over in Germany, 9SN is back on her Bavarian nest.

• Here’s a Polish nest livestream for your collection.

Next Generation Osprey Fans

Who are these industrious home schoolers, learning about Ospreys?

My daughters!

They particularly enjoyed this video: