The stationary sisters

Katie Fuller — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:46:00 GMT

No, not pens and pencils, but Rothes and Mallachie, neither making any exciting movements as far as we can tell from today's batch of data.

Rothes has been mostly sitting by her favourite fishpond. At the Birdfair, Richard spoke to Naomi, the wife of one of the RSPB's directors, who was just back from Bordeaux and saw an osprey very near to where we know Rothes has been hanging out. Was it her? We can only wonder...

Rothes did make a brief sortie to the Gironde yesterday afternoon. She actually registered as the dreaded 'negative altitude' though my guess is that she was sitting on the shore of the estuary while the tide was out. Perhaps she was watching boats go past or maybe just eating a fish.

And as you webcam-watchers know better than almost anyone, Mallachie is still in residence at the nest.

Richard's sent me a few snippets of news, though...

Today, Malcolm saw Garten making a fishing attempt in... Loch Garten! He couldn't see if she'd been successful, but it's good news that she's having a go.

The gang at Loch Garten think Odin has left, not sighted for absolute certain since Saturday morning... They thought EJ had gone too, for a while. She wasn't seen yesterday, but a fish delivered this morning was believed to be from her.

An intruder, ringed White TF, was around this morning, making Mallachie nervous and putting her off eating the fish. Will she get the message that she'll attract less attention once she's not sitting on a big nest?

The Osprey Centre is still quite busy with visitors, no doubt enjoying the extended opportunities to watch Mallachie sitting around... They've had some fine, warm, sunny weather, but otherwise it's getting autumnal and very close to a frost late last night. Come on ospreys, it's time to go...

More tomorrow.

Loch Garten osprey diary : EJ

The stationary sisters