Blogs

EJ has been back at the nest for almost four days now and is settling in nicely. Compared to previous seasons it has been a relatively quiet and relaxed few days. She has been mobbed on a few occasions by the local ravens but that is nothing new around this time of year.

The only other intruder of any note has been another female osprey, she had a green leg ring which started with the letter J; the second identifier was obscured from our view unfortunately. Our unidentified bird landed on the nest, which didn't go down too well with our resident female as you would expect, but she wasn't too perturbed as she made short shrift of the intruder. EJ circled the nest alarm calling for a few minutes which was enough to see the bird off - obviously the intruder wasn't too serious in her intentions towards the nest.

That is it so far for our bird, but I am sure that in the next few days we will be seeing the arrival of interested males and serious females, that is when the fun really starts.

The Centre opens at 10am on Tuesday 1st April so if you are in the Strathspey area, come and see us.

If you want to specifically help the Loch Garten Osprey Team 2008, you might consider supporting the RSPB. You can do this online via the RSPB website: http://www.rspb.org.uk/join, if you add the code PR08, your membership will be credited to the Loch Garten team.

A warm welcome to all our readers from the Operation Osprey team 2008. The team this year consists of Louise, Keeley, Rachael, Claire A and Claire F, plus myself of course, you will get to know us all throughout the season as between us we will be keeping you up to date with the goings-on at Loch Garten through this blog.

Fantastic news to start the first blog - Yesterday (26th March) at 2.45pm our resident female, EJ, landed on the nest, she stayed for a few minutes and then disappeared off in the direction of the fish farm, this isn't unusual as she will pop down there for her food until the time a male arrives to feed her. She re-appeared again later that evening for 25 minutes before going into the trees at the back of the nest to roost.

Despite the osprey being on the nest the Centre isn't open yet; we need to make sure that the first few days of her arrival are as undisturbed as possible, even though she is in her 5th season here at Loch Garten she has been away from the site for six month, the slightest of disturbance could "spook" her from the nest so I would ask you all to bear with us over the next few days whilst we allow her the settle properly onto the nest. The Centre will be open at 10am on 1st April, by which time she should have an interested male feeding her.  Will it be Henry? History would suggest not.

I will update again on Sunday. Until then..............

If you want to specifically help the Loch Garten Osprey Team 2008, you might consider supporting the RSPB. You can do this online via the RSPB website: http://www.rspb.org.uk/join, if you add the code PR08, your membership will be credited to the Loch Garten team.