Has EJ managed to protect her eggs against the barrage of rain over the last few days and has spring finally sprung at Loch Garten? Find out more by checking out the latest on the Loch Garten osprey diary.
It's anyone's guess how many eggs have hatched in Cardiff as you'll see from the We Love Wales blog. Check out the webcam and see if you can spot them.
Guest blogger: Jo Keene, our Manchester People Engagement Officer
The first Manchester Peregrine chick picked the wettest day of the week to emerge from its cosy shelter.
One of our long standing volunteers, who has been helping on the project since 2008, was watching the webcam yesterday morning and noticed that the female was looking decidedly uncomfortable and fidgety. This was a huge contrast to how settled and doggedly she's been sitting out the deluge of rain the city has seen in recent days.
Kath decided to keep watching, knowing that the eggs were due to hatch any day now (indeed our locals have been "placing bets" on when the first one would arrive with the 26th being the firm favourite date). She was rewarded with the female removing pieces of eggshell from underneath her and discarding them. However, it wasn't until later on in the afternoon that we got our first glimpse of the chick and could confirm the hatching.
This morning, viewers were greeted with more eggshell littering the nest box and the hope of a second chick emerging. The parents have been seen bringing food into the nest box already to feed the first two hungry mouths and we eagerly await the arrival of the next two....
Stay tuned to find out if there's more hatching over the weekend amd check out the live nestcam for a chance to see the action for yourself. You can follow us on Twitter too - just look for @mcrperegrines.
There's something strange happening at the Lake District ospreys. We currently have two ospreys on site, who are busily mating and setting up home, but we can only identify one of them!
The male has been identified as one of the chicks born and raised on site in 2007 thanks to the ring on his leg. The identity of his female companion however remains a mystery! She doesn't have a ring, so we can't identify her that way, and ospreys are incredibly difficult to tell apart physically.
Is the female in question the same female who bred in 2007 and therefore the male's mother?
Is the female the same one that our male was spotted with last year? If she is then that means both of last year's birds have failed to return to site. No-ring, last year's male, still hasn't been seen and to have both of last year's pair disappear at the same time would be very unusual.
It easy to see why Barbara Thomson and the other staff on the ground can't be sure who the female is: “Although we think it is the same female bird as last year because of her markings and behaviour on arrival, we cannot be 100% sure as she is not ringed. She could be a look-alike but a completely unrelated bird.’’
We may never know who this mysterious lady is for sure, but one thing we do know is - there are eggs! Three eggs were spotted in the nest over the weekend so fingers crossed there should be the pitter patter of tiny talons over the coming months.
You can keep up with all the comings and goings in the Lake District on Facebook and Twitter too.
The Chichester peregrines have their work cut out for them now that all four of their eggs have hatched. In fact yesterday saw a first for the site, with three of the eggs hatching on the same day! It wasn't the best weather to be welcoming new lives into the world, with hail stones and rain a-plenty, but mum and dad did a fab job keeping the little ones dry and warm. Here's hoping the pair can continue with their 100% success rate and fledge all four successfully.
This year's chicks mean that we've seen a whopping 42 chicks hatch out in Chichester over the last 12 years!
To keep up with all the goings on from the cathedral, you can see all the action for yourselves on the webcam or why not check out the Chichester peregrines Facebook page?
It was Tuesday 24 April, a still and wonderfully sunny day. Four of us began at Kiloran Dunes and ventured up the track past the highest point on Colonsay, Carnan Eoin. The views looking down at Kiloran Bay were magnificent; egg yolk sands with dark blue sea.
It is a steep climb at first, and the track cuts into the hill so that you are surrounded by rock and heather. It really does give you the sense that you are entering the land of the eagle. We descended the hill, looking at the farmland below and the giant stone sculpture of a whale above a raised beach. As we came to the cattle grid at the entrance to the farmland, a male chough was busy feeding on ground invertebrates, tipulids perhaps as the grubs looked pretty big. He looked so glossy black and his red bill and legs were glowing red. He took off and 'chaww-chaww'ed behind the nearby hill.
We carried on along the track, all the time scanning the skyline for any sign of a BIG BIRD! Wheatears were darting about the dry stone wall looking very painted! There are many fields closed off for corncrakes here from the first of April. They had arrived on the island a few days before so we crept along past the dense vegetation hoping for a crex-crex call.
After passing the farmhouse the track takes you through heather and then opens out through a gate into fabulous dunes with cattle happily grazing. Following tracks through the dunes we came out at Balnahard Bay, the most northerly bay on Colonsay. Each time I go there it is so peaceful and empty. Balnahard Bay looks right up the Firth of Lorne with fantastic views of Mull, the Garvellachs, Scarba and in the distance on a clear day you can even see Bein Nevis.
For such a quiet bay there was a lot going on... A male and female red-breasted merganser were fishing and displaying together. They run across the water with their heads buried in the sea. It provided us with great picnic entertainment.
Mark, one of our walkers, had a moth on his back. It was beautifully delicate with brown and beige patterned wings and its body had thin orange stripes. Its antennae looked like tiny feathers. I identified it later as a belted beauty. Mark had another stowaway on his coat. It looked a wee bit like a hairy woodlouse, black with orange stripes. We were totally stumped and had never seen anything like it before.
It turns out it is the female belted beauty moth! The female is wingless! I would never have guessed!
After our picnic we wondered back and passed the farm. Suddenly there was that rasping call, so distinctive and unmistakable. It was the crex-crex of a corncrake. We stood listening to his call and in the distance I could hear a raven's alarm calling about an eagle (ourk ourk ourk ourk ourk...). We looked to the sky and sure enough a golden eagle came over the hill... closely followed by ANOTHER ONE! Two golden eagles in flight together!
One (the female) was much larger than the other. It is hard to appreciate the size difference until you see them together. The ravens were flying at them and calling continuously. We couldn't have wished for anything more. We were all totally speechless! The whole time this was going on, the corncrake was calling from a patch of nettles behind us and just to top it off... a peregrine falcon came into view.
So through a single pair of binoculars it was possible to see two golden eagles being mobbed by ravens and a peregrine flying behind... with a corncrake calling at our feet and the sun shining down on us from the still blue sky. Fantastic!