Osprey..first egg on nest already

The RSPB: Birds of prey: Loch Garten Live Video

 

Robert, I read in today's i paper that she has laid her 59th egg and has been back to the nest 21 years consecutively. She is quite a bird.:thumb:

 

She now has two chicks.

The LG Osprey blog states that her 1st born from 2009 (which has spent the last 20 months in Central Africa) is heading North, no one knows yet where it will finish up, part way or all the way to Scotland.

 

Yes.. Its hard to believe that such small animals will turn into another EJ or Odin.

 

The osprey chicks are already getting quite big. I managed to tune in at feeding time yesterday. (Dad apparently brings between six and eight fish to the nest each day.) The babies were fine while they were eating all the good bits, but once they were down to the less appetizing morsels such as the tail, they kept spitting things out and had to be kept in line by Mum, who was determined that they weren't going to waste anything. I wonder if she gave them the lecture about all the little starving birds who would just love a big lump of chewy tail for breakfast?

 

Really nice to see the two Osprey chicks doing well at Loch Garten but it is a shame that Lady is sitting tight on eggs that are probably infertile at Loch of Lowes,especially after the fact that she was at deaths door this time last year and may now be getting near to the end of her breeding life{aged 26} although with the horrendous wind and rain problems they were experiencing the other week the eggs may of got chilled.

Pity though that the wardens still keep kidding themselves and everyone that the eggs are going to hatch especially as they are asking for donations for Osprey tracking for this year...

 

The Loch Garten chicks are still doing well. They keep stretching out their wings and flopping them all over the place, as if they can't quite work out what to do with them. This morning Odin brought a big fish to the nest but then seemed to change his mind about sharing it. He promptly disappeared, presumably to enjoy a leisurely fish breakfast on his own. EJ hasn't shut up since. I don't speak osprey but I get the general gist.

 

They sure make fascintating viewing and as you say Clare you can almost understand the chatter.

 

The chicks have now been ringed and are practising lots of wing-flapping manoeuvres ready for that first take-off.

 

Yes.. wont be long now.

 

It's been quite moving, watching them grow into big birds from little tiny, bald blobs. Did you notice that they've got transmitters on their backs now, Robert? The aerials make them look a bit like Thunderbirds puppets.

 

If you check them out now. It looks like a lot of practise wind flapping going on ready for the big day. Now both with trackers it will be possible to track them on their adventures.

 

They're spending a lot of time right at the rim of the nest, too, as if they're checking out the big wide world.

 

I often leave the Loch Garten webcam running while I'm working. Today my computer started to make a very peculiar squeaking noise. It turned out to be coming from a large, stroppy teenage osprey which clearly felt it was entitled to a bigger lunch.