ALYTH AUGUST 2023 to end of FEBRUARY 2024

08 September

No Osprey seen up to 07:22, but were these visitors Starlings?

I'm off duty for some hours

Good morning Scylla, yes a lovely family of starlings thank you. A very misty start to the day, not fully clearing until around 10.20. Still no ospreys. (Up to 10.50) I’m sure our #3 has flown south. We’ll see if Harry makes an appearance later with a fish unless he is sure #3 has gone too.

Definitely no-one up to 13:30, but then my downloader stopped and I wasn't conscious to restart it until just now

Thanks Scylla, it appears no ospreys came to the nest at all today so the whole family is on their journey now. I’ll do a wee end of season summary tomorrow.

Sunday 10 September 

All the Alyth ospreys are gone and the nest lies quiet. Three chicks were born to Flora (HK0) and Harry and grew into fine young ospreys. My first year of watching this nest closely, Flora and Harry are the established residential pair.  Flora arrived first this year on 30 March, followed by Harry on 4 April. I’ll never forget how excited he was to see her on their reunion.

They mated quickly and soon produced 3 eggs. Both birds were dutiful in the preparation of the nest and incubating their eggs. When the chicks were born, Harry brought many fish to the nest, averaging around 7-8 per day. On one “super day” in June, Harry caught 13 small fish.

Flora was quite a personality and a great collector of man made materials and brought plastic sheeting and other items to the nest.  Some of the plastic sheeting blew off but some became embedded in the other nesting materials. At the beginning of July chick #1 got a thin band of sheeting wrapped around its ankle for a week or so, Seemingly no harm done thankfully. Fewer sizeable fish were brought to the nest by Harry and sibling rivalry grew.  #3 chick missed out on a feed some days as it’s older siblings dominated the feeds. Flora started fishing as well then took a 3 day break during the last week of July.

Flora was away elsewhere for the first week of August too. Chick #1 was last seen on 4 August, aged 75 days. Chicks #2 and #3 had some big battles for dominance of the nest and went hurtling over the edge a few times. Flora returned on 8 August but left again on 10 August to start her migration. The online cam went down from 13 August to 23 August. When the cam came back up on 24 August, only #3 was left. So #2 presumably started migration between 82 and 92 days old. #3 remained on the nest until 7 September, a ripe old 105 days! Harry twice flew in with fish and on seeing his last offspring had gone, he too left. 

I wish them all safe journeys and hopefully the youngsters will return in later years as breeding adults. All going well, we’ll see Flora and Harry next year. 

The three juveniles 2023

(Left to right) Harry and Flora at the beginning of the season.

Many thanks Glider for all your dedication to this nest, bringing us daily progress reports, such a shame live streaming was not available for all those days and that the nest too high to climb to ring and sex the youngsters, do hope to see Harry and Flora back next year!

Thanks Glider for the season's summary and all your photos during the season. It's been a pleasure to read your posts.

Many thanks Wendy and Janni. It was a very interesting nest to follow and to get to know the characters of Flora and Harry.
Yes, it was a shame we missed the live stream action at the end of the season before #2 left. We were lucky #3 was still around to watch for a few days. I’m so happy that he/she made it to migration as there were times I really worried about the lack of food #3 got. I hope Flora and Harry return next year. I know there was chat on the live stream about plans for battery storage in the field below the nest so things will look a whole lot different next year.

19 October - Storm Babet

Not many sticks blown off, the cam went down just before 02:00 last night: