DAILY UPDATE ~ Loch Garten Nest ~ Monday, 17 July 2017

To my dismay, I return after a week to EJ's apparent disappearance from the nest site. It seems she was last seen Friday July 15 evening, flying from the Love Tree to chase female CT6 off the nest. 48 hours later, no sighting reports from LG or Aviemore. Meticulous and often humorous observations are still coming from our daily forum team, undeterred by all this season's events---a great thank you to all who post here.

Our own MaryGK made another visit to LG and has posted a complete report here. Again, she includes information we don't see through the camera, but gives a real idea of what the LG VC is all about. Unfortunately for Mary and us, the report did not include an EJ sighting. :-(

However, not only EJ was missing today---the usual crowd vying for the nest had left, too, except for the unringed male (scylla's video) and unringed female on the nest in the morning. One interesting theory was that an Osprey Convention is being held somewhere (perhaps Strathallan!) and that the osprey will be returning once it's over. In regards to identifying the many unringed visitors to EJ's nest, I have given up except for musing over all the collected evidence in BNN's most excellent and amazing page cataloging all the 2017 intruders ringed and unringed. Not only is this great for considering them side by side, but it will be a wonderful part of the LG archive we'll need to refer to come Spring 2018.

Lastly, a shout out to Limpy who valiantly kept watch over the nest single-handedly for a full day this past week (not that he only has one hand, of course, hee hee). We need you. And here is a literal and metaphoric image of the state of affairs---windy and empty and dark. :(© RSPB - Loch Garten and Carnyx Wild