So this is the month you have been waiting on, the month when EJ and Odin should return to Loch Garten and set off a new breeding cycle. This will be the seventh year of them as a couple. Before the month is out we will know a lot more than we know now.
Right now we do know that the ospreys are moving north but it is a question of when will be the first osprey back on its nest in Britain. In recent years that honour has fallen to 3 (97) the great rutland patriarch. Start checking the skies from the 15 March onwards.
There will be much anxiety as to whether Lady arrives. She is not expected until the end of March.
The Glaslyn pair are usually very early too and they usually get down to breeding right away. They hold the record of the earliest ever osprey egg known to be laid in Britain.
Then there is Monty and Glesni. I know they are not due in March but Blue 24 is. Will Blue 24 be around for another season of harassment? We await the answer to that one with interest.
Then there are all those nests in the Lake District now. Will Bassenthwaite get a tracked osprey home. White 14 looks as if he might be heading north already.
Then of course there is Kielder. The one thing we can be sure of is that we get plenty of news from Kielder and the two Welsh males there.
So it is all beginning and no rest now until September.
Tiger Signature
The HFW has been updated (Mar 15th). Beatrice is at the River Adour. More news and photographs will be posted later.
All others are still at their wintering grounds.
re Strathallan: Surely they can't move a nest now: wouldn't they need a license from SNH anyway?
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Unknown said: re Strathallan: Surely they can't move a nest now: wouldn't they need a license from SNH anyway?
OG the whole thing has been a farce. A nest not on the actual Strathallan Castle estate where the concert will be held, which apparently is divided in two. The owners of the land on which the nest is has not given permission for that nest to be removed. Preliminary work was started by cutting down some trees, before folk got up in arms and it was decided that the whole thing needed a proper planning application, with an Environmental Impact Assessment. Neither RSPB nor the SNH objected, although the RSPB appears to be taking another stance now. The P&K Council has now asked for further information in addition to that submitted for the initial Scoping and there is now another 28 day public consultation. In one article about the affair it is suggested that the Council would not be able to make an opinion until May, by which time the ospreys will be back on their nest, and possibly on the other nest which they were going to construct. I am not sure whether this has actually been done. It seems to be that the developers has been tardy in all they have done in relation to the application, expecting it was a full gone conclusion, and now time is running out.
Birdie's DU Summaries 2018 https://www.imagicat.com/