LOCH GARTEN OSPREY GABFEST for APRIL and MAY, 2018

  •                   then settles back in to full incubation mode.

  •  Where in the world did that POST come from? Is someone, bird or man, starting a major fence around the nest?  To keep out pine martins maybe or other intruders.  :)  

  • STEAM LOCOMOTIVE 60009 OSPREY (UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA) steams past Osprey Nest.

    Went to Pitlochry today to see steam locomotive 60009 OSPREY on route Edinburgh to Inverness.

    It passed Dunkeld only a mile from the LOTL nest routing the Highland Line and stopping for water at Dalwhinnie.

    It was built as Union of South Africa but in the 80s and 90s was renamed OSPREY due to political opposition to South Africa's apartheid policy and now bears the original name.

    It was double headed by a BI class 61264 to haul it up the Cairngorm Range to Aviemore.

    After some dinner popped back into Dunkeld to have a look at the nest in LOTL. All was so peaceful at the nest with LF15 sitting on her 3 eggs although she got up for a stretch and took a look at the eggs maybe turning them. The steam train puffing past her did not disturb her :)

    This is a great VC. As a SWT member you can pop in any time 24/7 and watch from the hide. The VC was closed when we popped into the hide this evening.

  • Not so confident with LG nest but I await with hope for some success.

  •  EXACTLY, KEITH.  We can only wait and hope.  I believe you are not really a fan of cam watching, but I watch as much as I can, mostly just checking in at frequent intervals. Miss a lot that way, sometimes it seems by mere minutes, if not seconds.

                      Even so I am hoping  so very much, that I get at least one little bobblehead to watch this year, two or even three would be better. But conditions being what they are this season, I will be grateful for just one.

  • Love your post and pictures of the Osprey Engine.  I am especially impressed with the closeup of the first one.  I hope Willow is looking in.  I know she will enjoy this.

  • JUNE - you should pop in and watch LOTL now and then. This is a lovely nest and VC run by Scottish Wildlife Trust. I have been a member for many many years. You should certainly see bobbleheads as LF15 is on three eggs at present.

    Apart from Opsreys they do so much work around the area of the loch which they own.

    I watch other nests around my home but LOTL is one of My Favourites.

    As you are aware Royal mail introduced a set of six stamps celebrating re-Introduced Species. Two of these were introduced at LOTL The Osprey and The European Beaver. If I go up on an evening to watch LM12 and LF15 often see the beavers coming out onto the loch.

    They also do much work with the conservation of red squirrels and these can be viewed regularly from the VC.

    Another favourite at present is watching the grebes doing their dance routine on the loch in front of the hide.

  • LOTL cam is on my "favorites" list.  But of the four I have listed to watch LOTL is probably my least favorite.  Except for LADY, it just never has pulled me in, so to speak.  Dyfi has become a second favorite with Monty and Glesni (who sadly has not yet returned) and Dai Dot and all their shenanigans.  Manton Bay I enjoy mostly because of the double cam and lovely background view of sunsets and sunrises particularly.

        Yes, I may have to find another nest to watch.  I'm thinking maybe Hellgate nest in Montana,USA.  It has a brilliant cam picture, so bright and detailed and natural color.  Onlything is, it is YouTube and I can't tell when it is live &hen recorded and I want live.

         i'm glad LOTL is handy for you and I do appreciate all the good work they do which you have just told us about.

  • Evening, June (and anyone else reading this).  LOTL and LG were my first UK Osprey nests; later I added Rutland and Dyfi and after that, several others, some with live streaming and some with only regular reports/blogs.  But another nest which has crept into my top half dozen is the nest at Glaslyn.  You may or nay not know that the Glaslyn nest is in northwest Wales, north of the nest at the Dyfi estuary.  The reserve used to be run by the RSPB but now it is run by a group of volunteers (although I believe they might have one or two paid staff).  They are in close connection with the people at the Dyfi Osprey Project (Emyr Evans who heads the Dyfi OP used to run the Glaslyn project for the RSPB).  Glaslyn have a fabulous camera with 24 hour live streaming so you could consider following them as well.  Part of the appeal is that most of the people monitoring Osprey nests in Wales confer with each other about the birds.  This is particularly interesting because of the interaction between the Ospreys, pairs and intruders alike.  When an Osprey leaves from or appears at a nest, the human followers can report to the others which helps to identify individual birds and to fill out the stories of their 'soap opera' lives!  In addition, I am also interested in the 4 Osprey nests at Kielder in northern England, particularly since two of the males there are brothers from two different years of the Glaslyn nest.  Mr GB and I will be volunteering at Glaslyn for a few days in the summer.  If you do not already know it, have a look here (apologies for the lack of a posh link!):  www.glaslynwildlife.co.uk

    Kind regards, Ann

  •                                          Sunrise and sound.  For the first time in a long time I heard EJ chirp as I made this capture.  Nice!