It is August and that means that the ospreys will soon start to leave if they have not done so already.
The weather in July has been exceptionally dry and warm and this has hopefully led to a bumper crop of young ospreys.
Glaslyn led the way in the fledging stakes as usual with the elder chick fledging on Saturday 6 July at the age of 54 days. Many other fledgings quickly followed mostly on 52 days.
The younger of the two chicks at Loch Garten (Breagh) showed that coming from a fourth egg is no handicap at all provided you do not have three older siblings to bash one about. That is exactly the task faced by two #4 chicks at nests in the USA. The chick at Terrapin Cove did not survive but the feisty #4 at Friends of Island Beach State Park did survive to fledge at the age of 57 days. #4 became so good at getting up front for the fish that some people expressed worries that its bigger siblings might not be getting enough! Thus no doubts that four chicks can be successfully raised.
ChloeB and I visited Tweed Valley, Kielder, Threave Castle, Wigtown and Caerlaverock osprey projects. All very interesting.
At Dyfi we have two very late chicks who are growing up very quickly. The strange thing is that Monty has taken to building a new nest. Whatever is in his mind? I guess we will find out in due course.
So one more month of then ospreys and then they will be largely gone for 2013. The season goes so quickly.
Tiger Signature
Clare Bailey said: I also wouldn't be surprised if someone has specifically sponsored this particular pair of ospreys - with all of the interaction with EJ in the last two seasons I can imagine people being interested in when both Blue XD and Green J return. Given Green J's age I just hope she does return - she's clearly quite a bird.
The Reason - Scientific or Entertainment - I will leave that for individuals to judicate.
I don't think Roy would accept a commission to track specific birds for someone else's purposes unless he felt there was a legitimate scientific justification for it. Wanting to keep track of lover-boy's movements relative to EJ next spring is unlikely to count! And especially not with this pair - he was fairly clear in what he said at Birdfair that Green J is a particular favourite of his.
Rachel R said:Green J is a particular favourite of his.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.
Maybe. Or maybe he set out to trap XD, and got the Mrs first... Fun to speculate, but we may never know for certain.
I didn't think of that, Rachel.
Rachel R said: Maybe. Or maybe he set out to trap XD, and got the Mrs first... Fun to speculate, but we may never know for certain.
Most excitingly two new GPS/GSM transmitters have been fitted to two male ospreys. Blue XD and Yellow HA and would be very pleased to hear from anyone or organisation which would like to sponsor one or both of the remaining two transmitters.
I am just not sure of the exceptional scientific reasoning behind tagging Green J and do believe that the reasoning behind tagging at some nests (Maybe not in this case) is purely to promote the nests/visitor centre as it reaches out to the public.
Do we know which nest Yellow HA comes from?
For some reason I'm rather down about Green J and Blue XD being sat naved
Less than half an hour ago the above tweet was published :o
IMAGICAT
Hi SCYLLA Interesting Hope they can identify it