Holding the fort – that’s EJ and Odin just now! It’s a period of waiting and hoping, but with the odd burst of excitement.
Yesterday, hungry and cold after a long spell of incubating in an easterly breeze, EJ had started glancing upwards at an incoming osprey. She soon started calling – but harsher than usual. This bird landed in the camera tree and then the nest…at which point, she went bananas! She was standing up and flapping at it, while it blundered around – thankfully, avoiding standing on the eggs.
Either this was Odin – trying to incubate, but getting a bad reception for returning with neither food nor nesting material…. or… it was an equally young, keen male trying to impress EJ. You see, this bird was unringed, too.
To confuse matters further, he even seemed to submit to EJ – facing away and dropping his head. A few minutes passed and we then had two males in flight over the nest, one of which landed in the camera tree again – this time with a fish, eating and calling repeatedly! EJ herself seemed a little confused by this stage and appeared to keep doing ‘double takes’! She then called for food, at which point the unringed male dutifully brought her the fish and she allowed him to take over incubation - Odin to the rescue!
He seems to be doing his level best to provide a couple of fish each day (usually brown trout or pike) and he is obviously getting the hang of defending the nest. His most recent interceptions include four crows and a couple of greylag geese! Speaking of intercepting things, I must dash – our volunteers Richard and Adam have just found us two lekking capercaillie!
All seems to be going very well here at the centre, with Odin continuing to help with the incubation of the eggs and not just when EJ is eating. It is great to see her getting time to chill out and preen in the camera tree, especially as it has been so hot some days.
Yesterday even saw Odin taking a turn overnight, which is rather unusual. He certainly is a modern man! It is always more uncomfortable for the male osprey to incubate as he has a much smaller brood patch and is smaller in the body. They tend to wriggle about more!
Odin has also been supplying plenty of fish of a good size to EJ. There have been seven since Wednesday. Although he has brought in some rainbow trout, he seems to favour brown trout and pike. Perhaps the fish farm is a little too busy!
That said: EJ still awaits the first fish of the day. We thought Odin was away fishing this morning for about 40 minutes, then EJ started to food solicit and so we knew he must be nearby. We found him perched very close into the trunk of the camera tree, obviously managing to hide from us, but not from EJ! He then took over the incubating, whilst EJ took a long break of half an hour away from our sight.
There are long peaceful periods during incubation time, but EJ and Odin have had some stressful times too, with an intruding osprey two days running. Yesterday we had three ospreys (including an intruder) sat in the camera tree at one point and today one tried to land on the nest several times. Odin was very quick to chase them away. We are now waiting for him to return with a fish.
First things first, there will be no egg yolks on this blog today..... get it?...... egg yolks?.... ok so moving on. The fantastic news today is that there is now a third egg! Our first sighting of the egg was at 3:07 this morning and since then EJ and Odin have both been taking turns incubating. We are all relieved, happy and excited that we now have a full clutch and are keeping our fingers, toes, eyelashes...... well we're pretty much keeping everything crossed that the incubation goes well.
As if that wasn't eggciting enough (I know, I know, I just can't help myself), here is a run down of some of the facts and figures of the past few days;
Lest we forget, there is a huge amount of other wildlife at Loch Garten and the good weather over the past few days has provided us with sightings of lizards, red squirrels, goldeneye ducks and even a few glimpses of crested tits! So all in all it has been a very exciting few days here at the Centre, and we are all eggstatic (ok I'll stop now) about how well the ospreys are doing so far.
And finally a big hello to Cargilfield Pre-Prep P2 class and Sedgefield Hardwick Primary Reception Class. Miss Combe and Miss Briggs were in the Centre over Easter and told us you are all big fans of EJ and Odin.
Stop press! The wait is over...we had our first sighting of the second egg at 7.09am this morning! Odin also got his first sighting of it at this time too, when he brought some nesting material in to the nest! Odin has just taken a turn incubating the eggs, allowing EJ to have a preen in the sunshine at the top of the camera tree!
So a very exciting Sunday morning so far here at the Centre! We await the next fish...
Its been a busy week here at Loch Garten, with not only the arrival of the first egg, but another intruder and even more mating! EJ kept us all waiting with baited breath, and produced an egg on Thursday morning, with the first sighting just before midday. The centre has been quite literally buzzing ever since, and we anticipate the laying of a second egg either later today or tomorrow! It is great to watch EJ and Odin taking turns incubating the egg, it feels like the season is well under way, and needless to say all of us here at the centre have got our fingers and toes firmly crossed!
As if laying an egg was not enough activity for one day, EJ and Odin also had to see off an intruding osprey on Thursday as well. This was probably a late comer looking for a mate, and Odin proved himself once more as he immediately flew to the nest to defend it and see off the intruder!
So far today Odin has brought in two fish, including a rainbow trout. As we have come to expect from Odin, these were good sized fish, which EJ made fast work of, finishing both of them in around fifteen minutes! Odin has also taken over incubation duty at several other points today, allowing EJ to enjoy exercise flights and even a good preen in the sunshine at the top of the camera tree!
As always...we await the next fish....and of course the next egg...