Loch of the Lowes - 2010

Valerie D said:

Could we all just watch but be dignified and not put captured pictures of her pain on here , it is very hard to watch and I dont think we need the pictures , just my opinion I know but I dont feel a need to see them , I want to remember a grand lady not a fallen one

I agree Valierie I do not want possilby my last sight of her alive to be one where she is struggling.  Want to remember Lady in her prime and giving us so many osprey chicks over the years.

Yes lynette, positive thinking is what we need, we have seen Odin feeding EJ before so hopefully the Laird will realise something is wrong and do what needs to be done.  They are so perceptive these birds, we need to have faith. We can only wait and see.

Unknown said:

There is a new blog from LoTL on the webcam page saying that they hope it is just severe dehydration and that they are hoping for dad to bring in a fish a feed her, hoping and praying this will work.

We can only hope Short Stuff.  I for one will be willing her to live and hopefully the Laird will come with a fish for her.

I think the chicks wonder what is happening. One is at the side of her now whilst the other is behind her. She keeps trying to put her head up from time to time.

She has pulled in her wings and is  trying to raise her head . Maybe she is improving

In 1993 the female at Loch Garten died. This is what happened.

Super-Dad

In 1993, a tragedy struck the Loch Garten osprey nest. Our regular male Ollie, delivered a fish to the nest to his eagerly awaiting family. As soon as he landed on the nest we knew something was wrong, for entwined around the fish was fishing line.

As we looked on helplessly, one of the two chicks, only a few weeks old, immediately became entangled in the line. The female, seeing there was a problem, moved closer to her chick but herself became entangled in the line. After several attempts to detach herself, she took off, fortunately for the chick, taking the fishing line with her. Her sacrifice for her chick was greater than we could ever imagine. She never returned that day. We know she would never have abandoned her chicks at this stage, so we were left imagining the worst.

The loss of our female was a great shock to all at Loch Garten but this soon gave way to our greater concern for the chicks. We were left with a young male who, if the chicks were to survive, was now responsible not only for catching the fish but for taking over the female's role of feeding the fish to the chicks. Could he do it?

If he did accept the challenge, would the chicks survive alone on the nest while he was away fishing? What would we do if he abandoned them? All we could do was wait and hope for a miracle.

A miracle came, the morning after the female's disappearance, Ollie appeared with a fish and for the first time since his arrival in 1990 at Loch Garten, we saw him remove small bits of fish and cautiously feed them to the chicks. Ollie in fact became an expert in chick-feeding and despite all the odds, both of the chicks survived and on the 21st of July the first chick fledged, followed soon after by the second chick.

Thanks, Tiger.

Apologies if this goes wrong not sure how post to this page so it's a try it and see.  I am deeply upset at the happenings at LOTL and was alerted to it by the main LG blog.  Only started watching last year and only plucked up courage to join in this year.  My thoughts and payers are with all at LOTL (birds and humans alike) as I am sure are many others.

They've updated the blog. Basically they don't expect her to recover and if the worst happens will remove her body and carry out an autopsy.