LOCH GARTEN Daily Obs & Captures MAY 2021

Both back on the nest by 9.30. Spent a few minutes both looking in the same direction a little anxiously - but he relaxed a little quicker than her and went off to bring back quite a nice stick. He spent about 10 minutes carefully arranging it in the nest, before turning around, She promptly picked the stick up and moved it. Another thing he has to learn.

Both on the nest and pottering, fiddling with sticks Then Axel flew off and came back for an unsuccessful mating Hopefully he has gone fishing as Mistle was muttering under her breath as thek pottered They have made a virtual forest on the nest

'Well that's never going to work'

(c) RSPB Loch Garten

As far as we know the big binoculars are still in the forward hide !

He lands with something in his talon at 11.25. I am not fluent in 'Ospreyspeak' but am pretty sure the translation of her calls would be something like 'Moss? you expect me to lay 3 eggs on a diet of moss?'

I am sure 'Mission Control' would be able to do a side by side comparison of the nest at the start of the season and the way it looks now. They - particlarly he - seem to have been very industrious.

This morning I've had great difficulty keeping track of them, they won't turn the right way so I can tell who is who.  I haven't found a good mating.

12,27 he returns 'fishless', but immediately leaves.

Today’s snippet of ?useless? information? ………. I have spoken before that Ollie – the LG male in the 1990s - was fitted with a radio collar and his movements around the nest site were monitored for about 3 months until the collar intentionally rotted and fell off. What was interesting was where he fished at different times of the day. Between dawn and about 9 am he frequently flew directly to the fish farm at Rothiemurchus and on catching a fish flew back to the nest. Analysis of where he fished after 9 am in the morning showed he ranged much wider – fishing the Spey river and other lochs and lochans. Then at around 5 in the evening most fishing expeditions he took were again direct to the fish farm. Conclusion? He preferred to visit the fish farm at times of the day when there were fewer people around. Those who have volunteered know that when a bird leaves a nest volunteers are encouraged to note the compass direction of flight in the log book – and also when a bird returns to the nest – especially with a fish – the direction he returns from. Analysis of these compass directions over many years showed that other males showed the same characteristics – the most frequent direction a male Osprey took before 9 am and later returned with a fish (often from the same direction) and also after 5 in the afternoon was South West. Between 9 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon the directions were evenly spread between compass points. What is South West of the nest? You already guessed.
This is just one example of the knowledge and insight that can gained from those 10,000s of entries in the volunteers log that dedicated volunteers like Les have contributed to since 1958. God bless Les and God bless all volunteers at LG! You may not know it, but you are contributing to our understanding of these birds’ behaviour.