I've been posting these in the off-season Loch Garten thread but it's time to stop, so here they are until the ospreys prevent me from sparing time & resources for the beautiful couple and their beautiful (mostly ;) ) co-habitants.
Last season 2 youngsters safely fledged (but only just, it was hairy for a while, with one on the ground defending vs a persistent fox).
It was a relief to see the 2 adults return after the worst of the fires had passed.
YOUTUBE CHANNEL
TWITCH CHANNEL
Some birdie porn brought forward to save you risking the dark web ;)
The Rainbow Lorikeets are delightful and often invade in numbers, but the cams need to be manned to get decent close-ups of them.
The resident pair (I can't quickly find a nice colour pic of the two):
11/12 March:
One visited mid-afternoon, had a brief spell on the nest, left:
Back in the evening:
Was sleeping peacefully on a far-out bough when (probably) a Boobook Owl made mischief for about 40 minutes, on 'n off - hence she(?) stayed on where you see her for the rest of the night, until she left at about 06:40:
The frequent visitor top-right is a Noisy Miner, it wasn't one of those who caused so much disruption while the youngsters were on the nest, they were a Magpie (main culprit) and a Currawong.
IMAGICAT
Here's another "entertaining" episode from several days ago, when a Noisy Miner committed over-kill on an unfortunate "long-winged bee" (no idea what it was) before deciding it was safe to eat:
13 March:
Evening arrival:
Nighttime shift:
Main cam had gone down and changed URL, me unaware so there are missing hours. Tried to download from rollback but it doesn't work.
The Twitch cam has been cutting out and is not fit for video due to judderiness.
Morning flyoff by second to leave:
Evening of the 13th @ 19:21, one of the pair flew in and perched on the bough at the lop left of the Twitch pic, as so often:
The WBSE didn't change perch during the night. In the morning it left @ 06:52.
As a matter of (possibly no) interest, when it arrives it perches on the upper branch and then goes down to the lower, and at leaving time the process is reversed
The main cam went flaky, what I do have shows a wet and windy day with no birds seen.
Nobody at the nest tree tonight - here it is between day & night:
The first eagle arrived @ about 11:15 and perched on its fave bough, then the other arrived at the nest:
Sometimes they have a Harpy look about them :)
This was them some minutes ago:
10 minutes later they were gone, and they had not returned by evening:
The following night one of the couple was sorely tested by the Boobook. I didn't have time to sort this into time-saving clips:
Twitch cam view @ 4x speed:
The next evening there were 2 to defend, when the first arriver was joined by its partner:
Kind regards, Ann
Unknown said:But please don't over do it--save your energy for the Osprey season!
I've just come here with that very concern in mind, as I've found activities on the nest overnight and in the morning that must be documented (that's the drive, I'm sure no-one else thinks "must be").
The dear Boobook was back:
They recovered fine and flew off @ 06:40, one returning with a stick a few minutes later, leaving again...
Then !!! (And there's a glimpse of one of the eagles at the end.)
Highly brightened snap I did for the thumbnail:
The eagle pooped 'n flew at 12:05: