In our last diary entry we said we would not speculate on whether the sighting on 27th August of our adult female osprey would be our final one of this season. Perhaps we should have done, for it was! The two older chicks then left the area in quick succession, no doubt encouraged by a spell of high pressure, and were last seen on 28th and 29th August respectively.
The youngest chick, however, decided to stay a wee while longer. It was now the sole recipient of all the fish delivered to the nest by our tireless adult male osprey and we hope that the fat reserves it would have laid down will give it a better chance of surviving its arduous migration. We last saw our youngest chick on Saturday 8th September and, as usual, the adult male remained on site until he was sure that all 3 chicks had left the area, and departed on Tuesday 11th September.
We have had an amazing season of rivalry, infidelity, anticipation, relief but above all enormous pleasure that our two adult birds were able to raise three healthy chicks. We wish them well on their migration and look forward to seeing adult birds back on our nest in late March / early April next year.
If your appetite for ospreys is not yet sated then why not follow the progress of a family of ospreys on their migration from Scotland? In a partnership project with the Forestry Commission, the Highland Foundation for Wildlife has fitted an adult female and her two chicks with satellite transmitters. Their movements are being recorded at www.roydennis.org.
The youngest osprey chick in a brood of three is frequently a little later to fledge than its older siblings, but our youngest chick had no difficulty in taking its first flight at 52 days, another testament to the fishing skills of our adult male osprey.
Over the next 2 weeks, the chicks flew for longer and longer periods each day, returning to the nest to accept fish from dad, whilst our adult female prepared for migration. Very unusually, we witnessed her returning to the nest with fish and allowing her chicks to share in her catch. Most females leave when their young are about 10 weeks old and our female was last seen on Saturday 18th August.
The following Friday (24th) we were explaining to visitors that our adult female may well be in the south of France when she appeared back on the nest, after an absence of 5 days, and delivered a fish to one of her chicks! She was last seen on Monday (27th) and we have decided not to speculate as to whether or not this will be our last sighting of her for the season!
Readers of the diary may recall that we suggested that our resident male osprey has reared 3 chicks this year that are not his (see entry for 1st May). Our female Osprey mated with another male for 10 days prior to the arrival of our regular male, and laid her first egg only 2 days after he appeared. The probable father is a male Osprey who unusually has a metal ring on one leg, but no colour ring on the other. His colour ring has probably cracked and fallen off. He has not been seen since 21st April.
On Monday (27th) one of our chicks was alone on the nest and suddenly began alarm calling and mantling his wings. There must be an intruding osprey on site. Sure enough we spotted a male osprey perched very close to the nest and its plumage suggested it was not our male. After 10 minutes, the bird lifted first one leg and then the other to reveal a metal ring and no colour ring. Although our chick doesn’t know it, it had almost certainly met its real dad for the first time. A visitor who witnessed this amazing event suggested that the ‘Eastenders’ scriptwriters would be totally envious of our ‘osprey plot’ this season!
The text books suggest that young ospreys fly for the first time at about seven and a half weeks of age; our oldest chick turned 7 weeks last Saturday and, right on cue, took its first flight on the afternoon of 24th July.
The chick almost took everyone by surprise, as it had been doing a few wing stretching exercises during the morning, but had had a restful afternoon after having eaten a fish without mum's help at about 2 pm. Without warning, at 4 pm it opened its wings and launched itself from the 25 feet high nest. It disappeared off our screens, but we moved our camera and found it perched 100 feet in the air at the top of a nearby tree.
This chick had spent its life to date on a 6 feet wide nest and was now perched on a single branch for the very first time. It looked terrified and kept looking at the nest as if wondering 'how did I get up here - and how do I get back down there?'
Despite Dad arriving on the nest with a fish at 4.30 pm the chick stayed put and had to watch its two younger siblings being fed. Eventually, after 50 minutes, it plucked up the courage to fly again and made rather an ungainly landing back on the nest to find all the fish gone! Ah well, practice makes perfect - this morning it flew three times and was patently gaining in confidence and improving its take off, flying and landing skills.
At lunchtime today chick number two decided it was high time to take to the wing and joined its sibling for a brief fly around before collapsing back onto the nest. Two down, one to go!
We are delighted to report that, on the afternoon of 13th July, our osprey chicks were ringed as planned. As soon as the female saw the ringing party 200 metres from her nest she took off and circled the nest giving alarm calls. These tell the chicks that there is ‘danger’ and the response of the chicks (before they can fly) is to pretend they are dead, as they are amazingly well camouflaged in the nest.
Our Forestry Commission expert climbed the nest tree and the chicks were brought to the ground and ringed. They each had a BTO metal ring fitted to one leg and a coloured ring (White FC, FD and FE) to the other. They were pronounced to be in fine health. Two were thought to be male and the other a female.
They were then taken back up to the nest and ten minutes after we were out of sight of the adults the male (with a fish) and female simultaneously landed on the nest. Red 6A commenced feeding her chicks, who were certainly none the worse for their ‘ordeal.’
Over the last few days the two oldest chicks have spent much of their time preening their feathers and doing vigorous wing flapping exercises prior to taking their first flight. We anticipate that the oldest should make its maiden voyage some time in the middle of the week, although it will continue to return to the nest to receive fish from our tireless male osprey for another 4 or 5 weeks. We can promise you plenty of action still to come on our nest!
The peregrines fledged almost 4 weeks ago and as we hadn't seen them on camera for almost a week, we stopped showing the pictures at David Marshall Lodge last weekend. We've also taken the webcam offline for the season.
We start this update with news of our Peregrine chicks – both successfully fledged some 10 days ago and by now will be catching much of their own food; the adults return only once or twice a day to bring prey items to the youngsters, so you will be lucky to see them on camera.
Our Osprey chicks continue to thrive, despite occasional bad weather making it difficult for the male to fish. We have observed a (green-ringed) male intruding Osprey on a number of days who often perches close to the nest, causing our female to give alarm calls and mantle her wings until our male returns to chase him away. This intruder is no threat to the chicks and at this late stage of the breeding season will not attempt to challenge for the nest – it is probably an un-paired bird familiarising himself with all the nests in the area, and may possibly mount a challenge here early next year. Watch this space!
Weather permitting we hope to ring the chicks around 2 pm on Friday 13th July and this process can be seen live on our webcam! By then the oldest chick will be almost 6 weeks old and we hope to be able to advise you of the sex of the chicks once they have been ringed. Over the next 2 weeks you should also be able to see much wing flapping from the chicks, prior to them taking to the air for the first time when they are just over 7 weeks old.
22nd June
We are pleased to report that our three osprey chicks are growing well. The adult male is currently ensuring they are all well fed and thriving. The oldest will be three weeks old on the 23rd June and now there is not much difference in size between this chick and the youngest, which was two weeks old yesterday.
Our female Red 6A continues to brood them when it rains, but is now leaving them by themselves on the nest for short spells in fine weather, whilst she no doubt sits preening nearby.
The two peregrine chicks also continue to flourish and were ringed early last week. They were both adjudged to be female. Unfortunately during the ringing process our camera was disturbed and knocked onto its side – we apologise for the somewhat strange view we all now have of the cliff ledge!
Over the last four weeks or so we have attempted to identify as many prey items as possible that the adults have brought to the nest. The smaller male appears to specialise in smaller birds and we have identified three siskin and four chaffinch. In addition, the population of bullfinch is not huge in this area, and we now have one less, as a male was fed to the chicks recently.
The adult female tends to bring her catches to a ledge off camera and then only bring part of the prey item to feed the chicks, which makes it more difficult to identify. However, her catches have included a male blackbird, several jackdaws, at least four wood pigeon, but, perhaps surprisingly, only one racing pigeon. However, both male and female have also returned with numerous young starlings.
11th June
Firstly, apologies for the delay in updating the osprey diary. Secondly, as sharp-eyed viewers will already have seen, we are delighted to announce that all three osprey eggs have now hatched.
The oldest chick appeared on 2nd June, followed by another the following day, but we had to wait until 6th June before ‘the wee one’ put in an appearance. All three chicks are doing well, with our male osprey taking full advantage of the current spell of good weather and bringing in more than adequate supplies of fish for the whole family.
The chicks are so small that after feeding for only 10 minutes they collapse in a heap in the nest! But, just like human babies, not long passes before they are ready for their next feed. A magnificent rainbow trout of about 750g lasted all the birds in excess of 6 hours last Thursday. Let us hope that as the chicks grow, and their appetites increase, then our male osprey will be a good enough fisherman to continue providing the protein they need for all the chicks eventually to fledge.
As far as our peregrine falcons are concerned, our expected hatch date was inaccurate. We were not certain when the female had laid her eggs and it must have been much sooner than our assumed date, as three chicks hatched on 16th, 17th and 18th May. Unfortunately, when our youngest chick was only two days old, a day of torrential rain resulted in the chick getting wet, despite the valiant efforts of the adults to keep the chicks dry, and the youngest perished overnight.
The two remaining chicks are now almost four weeks old and appear to be progressing well, with signs of their first feathers developing. We are compiling a list of food items brought to the nest, which we will share with you when we next update our diary – which should be early next week.
14th May
What a pleasure it is to report that it has been mostly ‘all quiet on the osprey front.’ We now appear to have a settled pair of ospreys breeding together for their 3rd successive season. Our unringed male seems to have read all the relevant books about ospreys and is helping to incubate the eggs for about a third of all daylight hours (even though he is unlikely to have fertilised any of them himself!).
The energy requirements of the adult pair are not great and the male is bringing an average of three fish every two days back to the nest – more than adequate for their requirements. We were able to confirm on 10th May that our female ‘Red 6A’ has laid three eggs and are patiently counting down the days to 1st June when we expect the first egg to hatch.
We know from comments received that a number of our readers have enjoyed our webcam transmitting live from the osprey nest, which is new this year. Keep watching for the first sign that an egg has hatched. Many of you will also have seen that on 10th May a new camera on a peregrine’s nest went online . The female Peregrine has laid three eggs and we hope that these will start to hatch the last week in May.
We are patiently waiting a good view of the legs of both the male and female peregrines to check whether they are ringed or not. This nest will also see much more activity in terms of prey items once the eggs have hatched.
Here’s hoping for another two weeks of settled birds!
1st May
On 1st May we had a change in the weather – not a breath of wind! At 11.25 the male perched above the nest and for the first time in over a week we got a good look at his legs. No rings! The plumage of the male looks remarkably similar to our unringed male that bred here in 2005 and 2006. It appears that he therefore ousted ‘metal ring’ late on 21st April.
Research has shown that the male that is mating with the female 3 - 7 days prior to her laying an egg is likely to be the male that fertilises the egg. This suggests that our unringed male osprey is now helping the female to incubate eggs that are unlikely to be his! We confirmed the presence of at least two and possibly three eggs in the nest on 1st May and we would hope that the first of these will hatch on or around 1st June.
25th April
When our cameras went live on Wednesday 25th April we noted a distinct change in the behaviour of our birds. The female was sitting very low in the nest and at 3.15 pm the male joined her on the nest, carrying a partly eaten fish. She got up, took it from him and flew to a nearby perch. The male slowly lowered himself into the nest cup and took over incubation! No doubt about it – we had our first egg, possibly laid that morning, more probably laid the previous evening on Tuesday 24th.
Over the next few days our male continued to mate with Red 6A, bring in nest material, share his fish with her and also do his stints incubating the egg – or perhaps eggs – a clutch of 3 eggs is normal, usually laid 2 or 3 days apart.
22nd April
On 22nd April it became apparent that we still had our female Red 6A on the nest – her colour ring was clearly visible. But high winds, resulting in camera ‘bounce’, prevented us establishing the identity of the male. We assumed it was ‘metal ring’, as he was bringing our female fish, nest building, and at noon we noted a successful mating attempt. Our frustration at not being able to confirm that our male had a metal ring continued as the winds had not abated.
21st April
On the morning of Saturday 21st April our metal ringed male was busy nest building and mating with Red 6A. At shortly after 1pm both birds were on the nest and began alarm calling. On panning our camera upwards we found not one, but two intruding ospreys perched some 10 metres above the osprey nest!
Throughout the rest of the day we had all four ospreys on and off the nest and it became impossible to tell who was who in the constant comings and goings. We hoped that we could resolve identities on the Sunday.
20th April 07
Red 6A is back
When our cameras went live at 11.00 am on Monday, our red-ringed female was alone and quiet on her nest. The male was away fishing. It was a beautiful day, with hardly a breeze and as our female perched on a branch just above the nest, the morning sun lit her plumage to perfection.
Our camera, now unaffected by ‘bounce’ caused by the winds of previous days, was able to zoom in on the ring on her leg and capture the image we had long suspected it would: 6A. No doubt about it. This was indeed our female that had bred here successfully in 2005 and 2006.
Within a minute we saw her take flight and watched as she chased another similarly sized osprey (undoubtedly another female) from her territory.
Mating and nest building
The male arrived with a fish and, as usual, took it to a perch to eat his share, before delivering the fish to the female some twenty minutes later. He had been awaya minimum of 1 hour 20 minutes. She ate the fish away from the nest and, on returning, allowed our male to mate.
The male started bringing sticks back to the nest and the female occasionally joined in, often returning with lining material. By 2.00 pm they had mated a further four times. We had also confirmed that the male was the same that has been present since 10th April – no colour ring, metal ring right leg.
Shortly after 2.00pm the female began her food soliciting calls. The male put up with the cacophony for 30 minutes before relenting and disappeared off site. All was quiet on the nest, with the female sitting and resting - the energy from the fish going towards egg production.
A rival male
At 4.30 pm the female began food soliciting again. About a minute later the male landed on the nest beside her and presented his whole fish, which she took to a perch to eat. He was obviously not that hungry as he had resisted any temptation to decapitate it before delivering it. The male remained on the nest as our camera studied our female eating lustily. She despatched her meal in about 20 minutes and returned to the nest, alighting next to the male. As usual he flew onto her back, however, she turned, pecked his head and scooted him off the nest. How odd!
Two minutes later she began food soliciting again and the male landed on a branch above the nest with another fish! No way could he have caught a fish and brought it back to the nest in the few minutes he was away from the nest. All was explained a minute later when another male osprey dive-bombed the male eating his fish. We started to track the two fighting male ospreys with our camera and then the screen went black. Our solar powered camera had switched off for the night.
Piecing the information together that evening it was apparent that the male that landed shortly after 4.30 pm with a fish was not our usual male. Our female had accepted the fish, but rejected his attempt at mating. Our metal ringed male had arrived back minutes after this and been attacked by the rejected suitor. Replaying the recording it was impossible to see whether the intruder was ringed or not. Only careful observation of the male on site the next day would tell us which male had won the battle.
Metal ring wins
The next day all eyes were glued to the male – it was metal ring! The ‘resident’ male had obviously won the battle – but had he learned his lesson and be quicker in bringing fish to the nest? Tuesday also saw more successful matings.
On Wednesday the male was not on site at 11.00 am, but the female was on and off the nest bringing a collection of sticks, moss and grass. The male arrived shortly after noon. He ate for no more than five minutes before giving his female the fish.
After she was replete we counted four successful mating attempts, before he left at 1.00 pm – returning in world record time (for him) exactly one hour later with another fish. This time he ate for 40 minutes while the female called for a share of his catch, which she duly got. Two fish observed to be delivered in one day – perhaps we were hasty in our harsh judgement of this male?
On Thursday morning there was more nest building, mainly from the male, in addition to four successful mating attempts. The male left at 12.05, but again it took him almost two hours to return with a fish. He ate for just 5 minutes before sharing his prize with the female. She took off to eat on her favourite perch and instead of remaining on the nest he flew to the same tree and perched within a metre of her. They looked quite a settled pair. A quick check confirmed the presence of a metal ring on his right leg glinting in the sun.
The rest of the day saw more feeding. It was good to see the male providing so many fish, even if it was taking him longer than we would expect to deliver them!
Another rival male
On Friday 20th the male was not on site at 11.00. The female was on the nest and almost immediately she began food soliciting. An osprey landed on a perch two metres above her nest.
We quickly saw that it was a male with a green leg ring. He took off and tried to mate with our female, who was having none of it and chased him away, before he landed again two metres above the nest. The intruding male left at 11.50 am.
At 12.05 pm our female began food soliciting again and a male landed on the nest beside her with a fish, which she accepted. We quickly confirmed that was the metal ringed male (presumably blissfully unaware of the intrusion of the green ringed male in his absence).
Questions, questions
The next few days will provide the answer to a number of questions. When will the female lay her first egg? Difficult to say – it depends on her body condition – did she have a good migration or has she lost a lot of weight? – how well has is she being fed by our male? We would not be surprised if she did not lay her first egg early next week. Will this green ringed male put in another appearance?
Perhaps the most intriguing question is this – will the unringed male that has bred here for the last 2 years arrive and try to oust our silver ringed male? Readers of last year’s diary may recall that our female mated with a metal ringed male early in the breeding season – he was then ousted by our regular unringed male. We are almost certain this is the same metal ringed male that mated with her last year. We know there has been bad weather in southern Europe that has held up most Scottish Ospreys who are arriving this year often a week later than in previous years. Our ‘usual’ unringed male did not arrive until 19th April last year. Is it possible he is still on his way?
Which of the two males will win the battle this year? If the resident male arrives after our female has started laying eggs what will be the reaction of the unringed male to eggs that aren’t his?
16th April 07 - the season so far
With settled weather in March in the Trossachs, little did we know that bad weather in southern Europe would hold up most Scottish ospreys on their 3, 000 mile return journey. Our patience was eventually awarded on 3rd April when an unringed male Osprey landed on our nest.
As soon as he landed, the questions began. Was it the same unringed male that has bred at the nest for the last two years? Would the young female ringed Red 6A return to join him? The male on the nest was not going to hang around while we pondered the answers – he was off and away within ten minutes. He was not seen the following day and appears to have answered our first question – it was not our regular unringed male.
We had to wait two more days before we saw a second osprey, a female with a yellow ring. A female ringed Yellow OU had bred at our nest in 2004 and returned in 2005, but had been vanquished in battle at the start of the breeding season by Red 6A. In 2006, Yellow OU was again the first female at the nest, only to leave when Red 6A returned six days later. Was this Yellow OU we were watching? This time the Osprey stayed for 15 minutes, then left.
A new male
On Friday 6th April an unringed male osprey arrived. His plumage differed from the bird seen on 3rd April. Was this our male from 2005 and 2006? It was very hard to tell – we needed some close up shots of his plumage to compare to last year’s bird. He spent two or three hours on or around the nest and seemed to be thinking of setting up home.
The following day we were hoping to see the unringed male again, but instead, the first osprey we saw was a bird not known to us. She was a female with a black leg ring. Within a few minutes of her arriving, the unringed male was with her on the nest and she began her food soliciting calls. The male must provide all the fish to the female to feed the chicks in the breeding season. This was his first test. He had to respond to her pleas to get a fish for her, if he wanted to breed with her. Her calls were studiously ignored. For over an hour she nagged, but he was resolute and made no move to go fishing. The black ringed female ran out of patience and flew off, the male himself leaving 20 minutes later.
Just when we thought the day was over, half an hour after leaving, the black ringed female landed back on the nest, struggling with an exceedingly fresh pike. The osprey is about 60 cm from beak to tail and the fish must have been close to this in length. Her battle to quell the fish lasted over 10 minutes and she was still eating 4 hours later. Some fish! Some female osprey!
A frustrating couple of days
Sunday 8th and Monday 9th April were frustrating. Both the unringed male and black ringed female were on and off the nest, but never at the same time. How long could the unringed male resist the pleas of the female for fish? Surely we would get an answer on the Tuesday? We did – but not the answer we were expecting.
Shortly after lunch on 10th April the two birds met for the first time since Saturday. Again, the food soliciting commenced. This time the unringed male responded. Less than 20 minutes after landing on the nest he took flight and the female became silent. He had gone fishing!
An hour later he returned and perched above the nest. He was devoid of fish. Not even a sardine. Even the sun seemed disappointed and found a cloud to hide behind.
The female also seemed unimpressed and began calling yet again for fish. The sun re-appeared and glistened on a metal ring on our male’s right leg. This was not the male that had been here since 6th April. The new male and black ringed female were studying one another when a third osprey landed with a fish – the unringed male was back and the battle between the males was about to commence. Then our solar powered camera switched off for the evening.
Battle for male domination
All eyes were glued to the monitors on the morning of Wednesday 11th April. We didn’t have long to wait for the question that was on everyone’s lips to be answered – the silver ringed male was sitting resplendent above the nest, gazing at his new territory (why did he only have a metal ring and not a coloured ring on the other leg? The most likely explanation is that the plastic colour ring cracked at some stage and fell off – now just the metal BTO ring remains).
Alarm bells started ringing as soon the cameras were rolling on Thursday 12th. Two birds on the nest. That was good news. But the female’s plumage looked strange. Our black ringed female had an unusual mottled appearance. This female looked a pretty uniform chocolate brown. As she lifted her leg we saw it. A red leg ring. She gave us tantalising flashes of the letters on her ring, but those who had studied our female osprey for the last two years were in little doubt. She was back!
The return of Red 6A
She had arrived five days later than last year – but this appears to be the trend for most birds this year. As usual, we were treated to her food soliciting calls but this time the silver ringed male responded almost immediately. He returned two hours later with a fish. This looked promising, until he proceeded to eat it all himself.
It looks like this might be a young male, perhaps attempting to breed for the first time. Would he learn that in order to breed he needs to feed his female?
Friday 13th gave us our answer. The male left the nest around noon and reappeared shortly before 3pm with a fish. He started to tuck into his catch, but halfway through, landed on the nest and allowed our female to take the remainder. This was a breakthrough. The female flew to a perch to eat it, but returned to the male’s side within five minutes and allowed him to reclaim the part-eaten fish. She didn’t seem that hungry and he took it to a perch to resume his meal.
Within seconds she was calling for the fish again and he dutifully responded by alighting beside her on the nest and allowing her to take the fish from him. She flew off, but returned seconds later and yet again allowed him the take the fish. This process was repeated three times. Was she testing that he was prepared to give up fish? A visitor (male) commented ‘She’s just making sure he’s now under the thumb – like we all are.’ No comment.
Successful mating
Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th April saw further fish delivered by the male to our female and frequent mating attempts – many of which proved successful. Things appear to be going well. The only slight reservation in our minds is that the weather has been fine. Our male should not be leaving his female ‘unguarded’ at this time while she is fertile, in case another male arrives while he is away fishing, and attempts to mate with her. Yet the average time taken for him to get a fish and return is over two and a half hours! We know ospreys vary considerably in their ability to catch fish. Has this male a lot to learn in this regard? Will he be able to bring in enough fish to feed hungry chicks?
One step at a time. Perhaps it's too soon to be thinking about chicks – we need eggs first and hope for our first egg in the next 10 days or so. Much will depend how well our new male feeds our female. Watch this space!