Now is the time to head to Kinnordy if you want to get outstanding views of Osprey fishing. With the youngsters now trying to fish for themselves there is frequent activity, and often more than 1 bird at a time. On Saturday apparently a juvenile was less than successful, eventually leaving the loch with a piece of grass - not sure how useful that would have been!
On Sunday, however, we had great views as a bird circled over the loch repeatedly looking for prey. After several unsuccessful dives it did manage to get a large fish which it took off to it's favourite perch to start devouring. There were another 3 or 4 visits during the afternoon too.
I also got clear sightings of the Marsh harrier, which is now moulting it's primary feathers (you can see 1 or 2 of them are shorter than they should be, and his colour is becoming a lot more defined as other new feathers grow in).
A juvenile peregrine came in and took a lapwing on the wing, then ate it in the open so that we could get good views of it through the telescope which was very impressive, although the 130 lapwing weren't so glad of the experience. A female sparrowhawk shooting past the Gullery hide at high speed completed my raptor experience for the day.
2 greenshank and plenty of snipe were also feeding in the mud around swamp lochan, and the mallard, wigeon and teal numbers are also beginning to build. For those wishing to practice their ID skills there are a couple of young shoveler and some gadwall scattered in amongst the mallard, and all look very similar at first glance while they are in eclipse.