LOCH GARTEN 2024 - May to end of season

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Thread for April 2024

All pictures and videos ©️RSPBLochGarten&WildlifeWindows

Please read Korky's comprehensive March 2024 intro

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Asha & Brodie

The partnership has matured this season, with Asha continuing her good female role (and she loves nest-building) and Brodie being more reliable, both fishing and incubating.

The pair have fought their way thru all kinds of nasty weather - snow, wind and rain - and intruders, including the dreaded KL5 Klive, have been a nuisance but not dangerous...

so far.

21 April @ 10:47

24 April @ 14:06

27 April @ 13:27


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EDIT

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Sadly, the month of May heralded irresistible aggression from BlueKL5 "Klive", who had ruined the end of last season for the 2 juvies.

Within the first 2 days Klive had driven Brodie from the area (tho Brodie did return a couple of times to dive-bomb Klive, to no effect) and destroyed the eggs.  He commenced to woo Asha clumsily, selfishly and inappropriately, as can be seen from the following pages.

  • Crikey so Asha was suffering a two pronged attack.  Poor girl.

  • Reduced to the phone for a few hours. I assume it was KLive who landed and attempted to mate. I can't be certain, but I think Asha's tail came up, but KLive was all wrong! Cuckoo could be heard, and one flew behind the nest.  Asha had been good soliciting, and flew off toward the old nest PTX tower and called from there. All around 09.20m

    Birdie's DU Summaries 2018   https://www.imagicat.com/

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    Thanks to EJFan for the early heads-up, and thank you, SHEILA, for taking on phone posting  !!!

    I've managed to find a teeny-weeny snatch of "skydiving", I can't hear a thing on this darn laptop except unwanted sounds !!!

    Be that as it may, I'm still on last evening, I thought y'all might like to see how they ended up behaving but unfortunately Klive's final flyoff got lost between sessions:

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    And now I have to take a break, am still not recovered from the 2nd Pensive

  • Hi all.  I tried the other day to edit one of my summary posts from May 2 and it got deleted !!!!!  Then when I tried to put in a new one it wouldn't take it.  So I am trying again now to see if this gets posted and if it does I will redo the missing summary part and post it later on.  Need to go out for a bit.

  • When was Brodie last seen and do we assume Asha will now accept KL5, even if Brodie is still here? Has he decided KL5 is too much to handle? Oh dear, the drama!!

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  • Catlady said:

    When was Brodie last seen and do we assume Asha will now accept KL5, even if Brodie is still here? Has he decided KL5 is too much to handle? Oh dear, the drama!!

    Three questions, and I reckon that the last two are rhetorical, or "up in the air" questions so I will only try to address the first Joy I think Brodie hasn't been seen since he blithely, the darling, delivered a fish on the 2nd, only to be driven away very pronto by Klive.

    Given that the air-chases on the PTZ are so distant, it's not been possible to tell the difference between unringed males and there is at least one unringed intruder that I've snapped, probably on previous page now?

  • Brodie was last seen yesterday May 3.  He brought a small fish for Asha at 7:35 and then stuck around to "incubate" an eggless nest.  It was sad to watch.  At one point he looked at the remains of the egg out on the edge of the nest - my heart broke.  KL5 returned at 9:30 and chased Brodie off.  Hasn't been seen since then.

  • 11:55;32  FISH brought to nest by KL5.  Another epic battle between KL5 and Ashs for control of the fish.  KL5 does not release it and almost drags Asha off the nest when she tries to get it away from him.  

      if you can, this would make a great video.  Thank you.

  • At 14:02 can see that KL5 has a full crop compared to Asha's empty one.

  • Just a 'pop in'.  I have been wondering....  There was an assumption that KLive had a nest elsewhere last year, but we don't know.  The same goes for today.  The time I watched him this morning attempt to mate, when I think Asha wasn't being so reluctant and sort of raised her tail, he had absolutely no idea what to do.  Neither so far has he brought  fish in, and willingly let her have it.  Is he new to breeding???   He's good at fighting, we know that.  He didn't quite know what to make of the chicks last year, but neither did he initially attack them when he landed and they were alone.  

    Birdie's DU Summaries 2018   https://www.imagicat.com/