(I am having enormous difficulty posting.)
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Foremost in our thoughts and hearts today is the status of Odin, who has been missing since before 08:00 on Tuesday morning. He was last seen taking off from the nest in pursuit of one of two male intruders, either OC (Orange Chest) or BTO (Odin lookalike, for the BTO ring on his left leg).
This is our last look at him, seconds before he flew:
(I need some help with the IDs of the 3 intruders, please correct me and I'll edit accordingly.)
All the while that we desperately worry about unseen Odin, his partner EJ is suffering before our eyes - and yesterday TWO intruders became THREE! We now have OC, BTO or OL (for Odin Lookalike), and Darvic (for the blue Darvic ring on his left leg - let's hope that the Centre can read it).
EJ has not eaten since the large, headless fish provided by Odin early on Tuesday, which she ate in instalments thru the day.
Yesterday evening OC and Darvic both intruded on EJ, sometimes overlapping with each other, and OC landed briefly on EJ's back (thank you, BIRDIE).
We hope and pray that Odin is nursing himself back to fitness and will be back today to tell these intruders where to go (Hell, for instance). But even if he returns in full health, what a difficult time is in store for him.
Besides the personal investment we have in our Gorgeous, Magnificent Odin, the implications for the nest and its osprey family don't bear thinking about - and we are only too conscious of the effect all this is having on the personnel at the Loch Garten Visitor Centre... not forgetting the prosperity of the 2015 season?
Finally - if only we could fathom why, suddenly this season, these male ospreys - three of them, no less - have chosen to invade Loch Garten!
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Please forgive the possibly de trop frames, I find it so therapeutic to concentrate on and agonise over doing them ;-)
IMAGICAT
Moffer, I too am amazed as it did look to me as if one was broken.
As for the eggs, I know going by the book any other male will kick them out but these ospreys have been known to surprise us before so who knows. If Odin doesn't return, another male may accept them.
"Birds are, quite simply, little miracles - and as such they require care and consideration."
Magnus Ullman
My Flickr account is here
Who is doing the warning chirrup. I can't tell. It sounds so like Odin, but I don't think it can be. Is it OC? The cam is useless.
Birdie's DU Summaries 2018 https://www.imagicat.com/
Skydancing!!!! OC doesn't like it and is alarm calling.
Birdie Num Num's brilliant DU summary 2017
Is that oc I'm not getting the orange but must be the light
chocoholix said:Do we have any precedents for males accepting inherited eggs and being willing to incubate an entire clutch laid prior to his arrival which he knows cannot be his?
There is one sort of precedent.
In 2001 S18 came back to find his good wife green J sitting eggs that the said wife made with a Norwegian toy boy. Now S18 evicted the toy boy but accepted the eggs.
Not quite a total precedent but close.
Tiger Signature
EJ likes the sky dancer maybe he has a fish as she is chuntering away about something
OC has flown. So who was Skydancing?
EJ is letting him do all the defending, she seems exhausted