Hello Blogmigo’s.

I hope you are all doing okay? For those you that are wondering, I’m doing just fine, a bit frustrated with how the season is going, but I still feel lucky to work in such a wonderful place with some beautiful wildlife.

So let’s cut to the chase then.

George has been visiting EJ less and less often, so much so that we’ve only seen him twice in the last week and a half. Although to be fair to the man, we are only around between 10am and 6pm so he might be visiting more than we realise. He was also in yesterday whilst EJ nagged at him for an hour and half before he left to presumably not catch a fish...classic George.

There is a silver lining to George’s disappearance, the more time he spends away from the area, the more time it allows EJ to get over the heart break of another failed season and allow her to move on and maybe find a better male.

George putting up with EJ's nagging

EJ on the other hand has been hanging around the centre for the majority of the week, looking majestic as ever. She even managed to catch herself a few fish. In fact some lovely person sent us a photo of EJ fishing at one of the fisheries in Aviemore yesterday. Apparently she caught two fish, in separate attempts, and dropped both of them. But third time did prove lucky as she flew off with a fish in both talons at 5:40am.

She has seemed to adopt the camera tree as her favourite perch lately, as she is often sat upon the tree when we come in most mornings. We can only hope with George visiting less and less frequently that EJ will find a suitable mate for next season. Fingers crossed eh.

EJ tucking into a nice juicy fish. 

So we finally have some good osprey news to come out of Abernethy. Last week, the osprey team, the conservation manager and I went to check on another osprey nest located deep in our forests. As the pair are very remote, away from any man made settlements, we had to be really careful not to scare or frighten the female off the nest. So we kept our distance from the nest and set up a scope. From the scope we saw a small white head poking over the nest, soon after the male returned. The male who returned was quite small compared and a very white back of the head, so we are very confident that it is not George. In fact this particular pair were very late arriving back from Africa so it’s likely that she is still incubating the eggs and rather than keeping small chicks nice and warm.

Straying away from ospreys, we are still hearing cuckoos and crested tits are starting to show again. The redstarts seem to be nesting in the tree line in front as they are showing well daily. Finally the red squirrels have started to come out in force as we see them nibbling away on the peanut feeders frequently.

Sorry for the short and sweet update, as usual thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

Lots of love,
Your favourite Visitor Experience Officer,
Blair