On the 15th of March the 360 cam went live and an Osprey landed on the nest. It didn't take too long for a pair to begin bonding:
Male: BlueAX6 "Axel" - Ringed at a nest in Glen Affric on 1st July 2016, he was the only survivor of 3 eggs.
Female: Unringed "Mistle" - a very beautiful specimen, according to our long view.
(Unofficial names - LG will decide on names if deemed appropriate.)
This inexperienced couple is bonding well - Axel has been a good provider, they're both enthusiastic nestbuilders, the only element that requires more work is the mating technique.
EDIT 01 JUNE - Axel & Mistle deserted the nest in May, apparently spooked by intruders. As there has been very little activity since then, this thread will continue to the end of the 2021 season, unless dictated otherwise by ospreys.
Photo ©RSPB LochGarten
Cam info kindly provided by Peter @ Carnyx.tv:
There is an identical camera and microphone on this nest as the HD camera at Llyn Clywedog (Osprey). However the nest was struck by lightning. This took out the camera, the camera power supply and the WiFi link back to the centre. We managed to replace the power supply and Wifi but it was too late in the season to climb to the nest.
IMAGICAT
scylla said:Good mating a moment ago.
20:02 I said that - this was it - it took 20 seconds for him to make the contact:
Someone was just on the campost and away again.
Les Carr
This morning Mistle landed @ 04:07 and got snowed on but took no notice. I've worked on the sound to no avail, only the humbuzz will come thru.
The first clips here are artificially lightened, only the final clip is natural-ish:
First mating attempt of the day and it worked! And he's no longer doing "prone mantling", it's "tall mantling":
I'm skim reading Philip Brown's book. On page 93, it says 'The Loch Garten Eyrie...was situated on the Seafield Estates' (think the year was 1957). On page 184, it says the RSPB bought 1517 acres of land surrounding Mallachie and Loch Garten not long after the ospreys established themselves there. RSPB LG celebrated its 50th anniversary there in 2009