Here is a blog from Hannah:
With no chicks to tether them to the nest, EJ and Odin have been spending their time on a number of different perches over the last couple of weeks. You might have seen some of them when we move the webcam around during Osprey Centre opening hours. Some of these perches aren’t visible from the osprey centre so it’s great to be able to show visitors where our pair are hanging out! I thought I’d give you a rundown of these perches and where they are in relation to the nest.
Odin’s Sentry Perch
This perch is a long way away, along the tree line south of the nest. This tall, bare, dead tree acts as the perfect perch for Odin to view his territory from. He often sits here when EJ isn’t around or when he’s trying to keep out of her way!
The “Love” Perch
This one is aptly named because EJ and Odin often sit on it together. Sometimes facing each other, sometimes away, they are obviously enjoying each other’s company. It is a low branching tree behind the nest with lots of room for two. This is EJ and Odin sat together in May, it’s a tricky perch to photograph!
The “Birds Eye View” Perch
This perch is the top of a broken off dead tree in front of our camera mast. Odin loves to sit here, near to his nest. There’s a great view of this perch from the centre but with the camera we can only see the top of his head as it’s right below it.
The “Fish” Perch
The osprey staff like this one as it is visible from the hide with a telescope! EJ especially likes this perch when she spends many hours eating her morning rainbow trout. It’s obviously the perfect horizontal branch for fish eating. This perch also provided some drama earlier in the season when a raven sat next to EJ hungrily eyeing her catch. This perch is quite near the Love Perch and is to the right of the camera tree.
This is EJ sitting on the “Fish” Perch last Friday at the moment an intruding male osprey decided to sit next to her!
The Top of the Camera
Finally, another one of Odin’s favourites, I’m sure he knows we can’t see him on this one!
The top of the nest cam is also popular, this looks pretty uncomfortable!
Often EJ and Odin sit still for hours at a time digesting the fish they’ve eaten, except for the odd foray to the nest. Odin is still nest building and scraping, taking ownership of his territory. The other day he even lay down in the nest as if he was incubating eggs! He also treated EJ to some sky dancing on Wednesday before grudgingly giving her a big fish. We’ve also had a couple of intruder birds over the past few of days, neither causing much trouble. One sat on a perch eating a fish near the nest until Odin noticed him and chased him away!
Breagha
Breagha is still in France on the River Loire spending most of his time around an area on an island and river bank opposite Le Batardeau. Some flights have been short at ca. 4 km west along the river on 3, 6 and 9 July. Others have been longer. On 5 July he flew NW and at 13.00 GMT was flying NW near the town of Bréhémont before returning to the river at 21.00 GMT having flown 25 km or more. Similarly, on 8 July he went ESE and did a round trip of 12 km.