The Odd Couple

Though we hardly dare say it, things seem to finally be running smoothly here at Loch Garten, EJ is spending most of her time on the nest incubating the three eggs whilst Henry brings in the food.

He's proven himself a modern man before (feeding the chicks in 2004 and 2006), but this week he has taken another step in the 'house husband' direction, he has been doing more than his fair share of incubating – sometimes physically nudging EJ off the nest so he can nestle down on the eggs – his eggs, those precious eggs. Considering all the fuss he made about making sure they were his eggs in the nest maybe that isn't too surprising.

The only disturbance our pair have had recently has been an intruding osprey and only yesterday this bird was allowed to land on the camera tree, a few yards from the nest. The odd things about it was that neither EJ, nor Henry, seemed to regard this bird as a threat as she made no attempt to alarm call but instead remained contented on her eggs.

Only when the 'stranger' actually tried to land on the nest did EJ begin to mantle her wings in a semi-threatening manner, a short alarm call seemed enough to see this bird off. Parent birds will tolerate their offspring's presence for a while but then nature kicks in and the parents force the young bird to find its own patch.

Had we just seen a returning chick from 2004? Unfortunately we couldn't see a leg ring, not even a colour, but rest assured if this happens again we will be straining every sinew to get an angle on this bird's leg – maybe Baldrick has returned!!!!! *

Our birds are turning out to be an inspiration to people of all ages; class 2 at Colliers Green Primary School have been so enthralled with Henry and EJ's story that they have set up a webcam in their classroom to watch the comings and goings on their own nest (a blue tit box in the schoolyard). We have also had two school friends emotionally reunited after 70 years; they just bumped into one another at the Osprey Centre.

We had a couple of bikers from Holland visit early in the week, they had been following the events on the blog and decided to come over to the centre and see the birds for real – they were even able to quote word for word the events which had been gripping them for the past few months.

On Saturday we had a wedding party on the edges of Loch Garten, the sounds of bagpipes floated across the water, but in true wedding style the weather wasn't behaving itself, the skies opened and we had hailstones raining from the sky – we felt sorry for the happy couple, imagine going to all that trouble only to be battered by hailstones the size of footballs!!!! We felt sorry for the newly weds too.

That's it for now... Our days usually consist of

1. EJ on nest

2. Henry brings in fish

3. EJ flies off to eat fish and Henry takes over incubating

4. EJ finished fish, returns to nest and starts to incubate

5. Henry flies off

6. GO TO 1

Rest assured, if anything major happens we will let you know.

*Baldrick was the male chick from 2004 that many thought wouldn't make it

 If you want to specifically help the Loch Garten Osprey Team 2007, 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.