Hey bloggersphere,
I hope you are all doing well. It has been a tough week to try and figure out what has been happening in our nest through the haze of excrement. It looks like our chicks are still feeding well. They have been combatting strong winds, heavy downpours and heatwaves over the past few days. It wouldn't be a Scottish summer without them being bashed by all the elements we have on offer!
We also had every curious kestrel dive bomb the nest and have a look at our osprey chicks. I tried to have a look back at the footage of the encounter but there was nothing of note to document the event. It certainly appears this year to have sparked the interest of more raptors than I have ever known. Our current raptor visitation list boasts a golden eagle, goshawk, red kite, buzzard and now kestrel. For non-talonned visitors, my highlight has definitely been the merganser that got a surprise when trying to land on the nest!
We have also had the naming of our female that was announced in Notes on Nature on Saturday with the winner being Asha. Who knew that a name could be so controversial? I have learned my lesson for next time but let's hope that we do not need to name an osprey for a long time. It has been brought to my attention that some clarity needs to be given on the name of our male. It had always been in my mind that the male was called Axel as I thought this was a name that was selected by the community and I am happy to keep calling him Axel. I know many people are of the opinion that we don't need to give him a name as he has a leg ring but I think that many of the public chose Asha with the alliteration in mind for Loch Garten's newest power couple!
We are hopefully going to be able to ring the chicks tomorrow if the weather is suitable and will take the chance to give the camera a good clean too! Before anyone asks about the chicks, I think we have had enough of naming things for a while. I will check back in when we are able to find out more about our two chicks. Will they be males or females? Let's hope that they will both be strong and healthy.
I think they have been since then, Valerie (carefully typed!), because I wasn't here for Nethy & Deshar but seem to remember it for Bynack (who is engraved on my heart). Maybe someone remembers chapter & verse.
I was under the impression from comments that the local schools had a regular involvement, but I may well be wrong.
Dont think the local schools have been involved with naming since Nethy and Deshar in 2008 ?
Thank you so much for the extensive update, Fergus. Regarding the cleaning of the camera lens; if the pan/tilt facility could now be used in exceptional circumstances, such as we have had for days now, the lens could be turned towards any available rain, and tilted upwards to get a 'face wash'. Do you think this option would be valid now? We have missed so much of the chicks' development. It would be really good, and not very intrusive at this stage, to enable this function, even if only for cleaning. I think the local schools may feel very disappointed if they don't have the now accepted task of choosing names for the chicks. It's not their fault the "community" were upset over Asha's naming.
Wouldn't the local schoolchildren love to name the chicks? It would be breaking tradition not to name them