The new Loch Garten male has been with us since Friday afternoon now and is doing all the right things. Fetching fish, mating, nest scraping and nest refurbishment. Looking good so far.
He's un-ringed and there are two possible explanations for that.
1. Given that there are now c.200 pairs of ospreys, it is not always possible for those that ring them, to get around to all those known nests at ringing time, which is a brief window of a few weeks when chicks are between 4-6 weeks old, plus there will be some nests for sure that are not known. So he could be a Scottish bird from a Scottish nest.
2. Equally, he could be a bird from another population, from further north, heading back there, to Scandinavia maybe, where the osprey population is larger than ours and where less ringing work is carried out. He's perhaps just passed through Scotland en route home and has lucked upon unattached EJ at her nest and thought she will do nicely thank you.
Without leg ring letters to act as a cue like for EJ, VS and HV and given this possible connection with Scandinavia, the Norse maybe, we're calling him Odin. It's also fits with previous examples of osprey naming alliteration such as Ollie and Olive.
More news anon.
Richard Thaxton - Loch Garten site manager.