I was writing a blog on Friday afternoon explaining how the bad weather was still affecting the migration of the ospreys but that things were about to change. We had seen skeins of geese heading North as well as Whooper Swans, the wind direction had obviously changed and we were hoping for good things. The blog was going to be quite short and to the point, basically, nothing has happened but "watch this space"....THEN, there was a buzz of excitement from the centre. A male bird had landed straight upon EJ's back, there was no alarm call from the female, there had been no aerial display from the male, no fish had been delivered. She obviously knew this bird and for a few seconds people were believing that it was our resident male Henry, alas, a brief glimpse of an orange leg ring shattered everyone's dreams.
Orange VS is back. We knew he was in the area as he had been seen on his own nest with his regular partner Green 7B, he had been back a week and we still hadn't seen him at our nest, until Friday. The birds mated successfully seven times in their first fifteen minutes on the nest. The mating has been regular, though not that frequent, since then. The male spends several hours away from the nest before returning (empty handed) to mate. Under normal conditions, the male spends hours away whilst trying to fish, but we suspect that Orange VS is spending time away on his other nest.
The male has, as yet, not provided any fish at all for EJ who, yesterday (Saturday 12th), brought in a 17+" rainbow trout for herself - if he fails to provide food for her and she has to go fishing for herself will she lay eggs? I'm not sure but I would suspect not. We can never predict what is going to happen in the Henry, EJ and Orange VS saga - this is the fifth season for this threesome and each season has had a different twist to it. The only thing we can say is that these birds are predictably unpredictable.
History would suggest that we need a reliable male to take over the duties of looking after EJ, if it is Henry then sobeit but any male will do, so long as it isn't Orange VS. The next 7-10 days will be vitally important, as we do not want another season like last year - so, as I was going to suggest in the Friday's blog "WATCH THIS SPACE"
If you want to specifically help the Loch Garten Osprey Team 2008, you might consider supporting the RSPB. You can do this online via the RSPB website: http://www.rspb.org.uk/join, if you add the code PR08, your membership will be credited to the Loch Garten team.