Sad news about the Osprey nest at Loch Garden

WendyBartter said:

Maybe something to do with the preference to take over an existing nest rather than start from scratch, seen this a lot with Peregrines last year & this!

Good to have the fuller picture from Tiger!

Sadly at Loch Garten, Ospreys don’t have to nest there. It’s only special to some because it was the first place after a long period of extinction in the UK. Just because Ospreys have nested at Loch Garten every year until 2018, that does not mean that Ospreys always will. There are lots of other areas in the UK where they can nest and not just in Scotland. I was very pessimistic about the chances of Ospreys nesting at Loch Garten in 2019 as posted earlier last year and again this year, of which I posted my view on that on the website of where Fergus has had his blogs. To many individuals are sentimental about the Loch Garten Osprey nest. But I’m taking a pragmatic view. Sorry the way I’ve said this, but this is my personal view! The reason I was pessimistic was when I asked Tiger why he thought Ospreys where not using the Osprey nest site in 2019 and he replied with a very good reason and Tiger does know a lot about Ospreys as I’ve read many posts on these RSPB Forum’s over many years.

I'm not sure I agree that there is a lack of fishing potential at LG. Yes, the loch itself is no use but nearby Loch Insh and River Spey are both (I would think) excellent fishing opportunities. Is there research that identifies the maximum distance that a nest can be from a source of fish for it not to be viable or examples where the nest is not immediately next door to a source of fish? Ian

Well if I was an osprey I would be thinking of building a nest close to Aviemore. That way I would know that there is a copious supply of fish of exactly the right size.

How many times have chicks starved to death in the Loch Garten nest?

This week we will see a brood of four hatching at Manton Bay. No lack of fish there.

I always feel there are two types of people in this world, those whose glasses are half empty and those whose glasses are half full.   I am a half full kinda gal  sentiment doesn't come into it, the nest has been very successful over the years, and OK if now there are a couple of years that it isn't used, so be it, I would hope and believe that it will be used again in the future.    Lets just wait and see what actually happens before writing it off.    There is enough doom and gloom in the world at the moment, lets try and be a bit more positive about the nest.    

Anyone who has watched an Osprey nest knows that as soon as you turn your back there is action on it, so until the nest is monitored 24/7 and they report that there has not been a single Osprey near the nest then we will know for sure it will not be used this season, in the meantime until that happens let's just be a bit more cheerier about it 

The males at this nest have had a choice of places to fish, long before there was ponds at Rothiemurchus and Aviemore, and they obviously survived, as you say Ian there is the River Spey, also Loch Vaa, Avie Lochan and a few more I am sure.  

Hazel b said:

How many times have chicks starved to death in the Loch Garten nest?

Yes I can remember one particularly bad season Tiger when Odin could only bring tiddlers back, and EJ fished early, but did the chicks actually starve to death!   I cannot remember that, but then you have followed this nest a lot longer than I, so you will know pre-Odin days.   

I am not sure how anyone who watched the Loch Garten cam can forget Sunday 17 June 2012 the morning when Alba managed to finish off her younger sibling. The repercussions went on this board went on and on. In fact two fans left this site never to return.

See    here

There was no forum in 2008 only comments on blogs and I am not sure if they survive or not. But it was  Orange VS's season as  male in residence. Fish were very few  and Nethy usually attacked the number 3 (know by fans as the Wee Yin) even before a fish arrived on the nest.  It must have come to fear meal times. 

Even though Henry was a master fisher he still struggled to feed his chicks.

However osprey will remain faithful to their nest and clearly did for  over 60 years.  But the bond has now been broken and there is no guarantee that an osprey will choose that nest again.

Every time I have heard Roy Dennis speak he always mentions why  houses that had fish ponds did so to satisfy the Catholic requirement for  "fish on Friday".  Of course if there fish in a pond the ospreys will find it and this is historically why there was conflict between man and osprey. 

This goes on around the world today and in the days when ospreys were tracked into places like Hatai the are inevitably shot  as fish farmers see them as stealing their livelihood.

I was just looking at a map of where the 1954 nest was situated and notice that it was much nearer to Loch Mallachie that Garten. I wonder if Mallachie is any better for fishing that the sterile Loch Garten. 

 

In 2002  Olive was still around and trying to get it together with a young male

Hazel b said:

I am not sure how anyone who watched the Loch Garten cam can forget Sunday 17 June 2012 the morning when Alba managed to finish off her younger sibling. The repercussions went on this board went on and on. In fact two fans left this site never to return.

See    here

There was no forum in 2008 only comments on blogs and I am not sure if they survive or not. But it was  Orange VS's season as  male in residence. Fish were very few  and Nethy usually attacked the number 3 (know by fans as the Wee Yin) even before a fish arrived on the nest.  It must have come to fear meal times. 

Even though Henry was a master fisher he still struggled to feed his chicks.

However osprey will remain faithful to their nest and clearly did for  over 60 years.  But the bond has now been broken and there is no guarantee that an osprey will choose that nest again.

Every time I have heard Roy Dennis speak he always mentions why  houses that had fish ponds did so to satisfy the Catholic requirement for  "fish on Friday".  Of course if there fish in a pond the ospreys will find it and this is historically why there was conflict between man and osprey. 

This goes on around the world today and in the days when ospreys were tracked into places like Hatai the are inevitably shot  as fish farmers see them as stealing their livelihood.

I was just looking at a map of where the 1954 nest was situated and notice that it was much nearer to Loch Mallachie that Garten. I wonder if Mallachie is any better for fishing that the sterile Loch Garten. 

 

I remember that thread. I didn’t post in that thread as lots of members of the forum where getting emotionally and heated with differing views in that thread and I didn’t want to get involved in that thread, as i had my own views at that time. I tend to take a pragmatic view that you can’t normally intervene like some members wanted to happen on that occasion. In my local RSPB Group most agree with my views, but there are a few of my local RSPB Group think differently to myself and the majority in my local RSPB Group. I tend to stay out of those discussions within my local RSPB Group as it would get heated and emotional and i avoid discussing that within my RSPB Group as we all get on so well together and I’ve made some very close friends within my RSPB Group and 4 of us go birdwatching together outside of my local RSPB Groups activities and one of those close friends has completely different views about the subject of intervention and she can get very emotional about that subject, so I avoid discussing that subject as I do want to remain good friends with her and others.