Egg-citing times!

But elsewhere, it's all drama…

Mar 30, 2020

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: