We only told you about their arrival on Wednesday, but there's some sad news from Cardiff I'm afraid. It seems that the last week of torrential ran and colder temperatures has taken its toll on the peregrine chicks and one of them hasn't made it. Luckily the two remaining chicks are looking very healthy and very big, so will hopefully be ok. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for some warmer and drier weather for these little guys!
Getting the nest cam up for the Lincoln peregrines has been far from straight forward as we told you last week, but I'm pleased to announce that the nest cam is now live! You can now keep up with all the action from the nest even if you're not there. And even better - we can now confirm that there's three chicks in the nest. Good news all round for a Friday afternoon.
A couple of week's ago, we brought you an update from the Aberfoyle ospreys where a new male osprey had taken up residence in nest 2. The team were hopeful that he would find himself a mate in time to rear chicks this season and it seems their dreams have come true - the lone male was joined by a female on Saturday. However, the road to romance hasn't been that straightforward. Our woman on the ground, Lucy, tells us more:
"What's interesting is that the male chose to ignore the female at first. She stood on the nest and called at him for ages. He just kept his back turned to her, as if to say "I'm not interested!" It's possible he was waiting for another female that he'd paired up with in the past. Luckily later on in the day the pair were spotted mating so hopefully they've sorted out their differences."
The lone male playing hard to get!
The original pair of ospreys are doing well and are on track for chicks arriving in early June.
The team have just linked up to a camera watching a peregrine nest too. So far there's three chicks, but one egg remains unhatched and as the chicks are now a few days old, it's likely to stay that way.
There's been a bit of a baby boom for our Dates with Nature this week.
The three Manchester peregrine chicks were the first to arrive, with the first two chicks making their appearance on 4 May and the third on 6 May. We can't confirm whether the fourth egg has hatched or not, and many people are wondering if it'll hatch at all.
This year's new arrival at Manchester courtesy of the nest cam.
The Cardiff peregrines have welcomed some new arrivals too - another hat trick with three happy, healthy looking chicks.
9 May saw the debut appearance of two goshawk chicks down in the New Forest. Our man on the ground, Jeremy, has been watching the nest cam, keeping his eyes peeled for the chicks' arrival:
"Having been watching the nest cam expectantly over the past few days, we've been reowarded with the sight of two new goshawk chicks hatching, the first appeared at around 11:20 am Thursday morning. In the afternoon, I was watching online at home and saw the second chick hatch at 4:20pm."
The Glaslyn ospreys have welcomed their first chicks of the season too. The female did a sterling job and sat tight on the eggs all through a hail storm with the hailstones bouncing off her back, then the news came through on Monday night that the first egg had hatched at 9.40p.m. The second egg hatched at 8:15 this morning.
Last, but by no means least, it's not just the birds of prey that are celebrating new arrivals this week. The first lapwing chicks at Loch Gruinart have also arrived, though they appear to be the only spring thing that's happening on time up there! There's signs that one of the chough pairs on the Oa and a pair of golden eagles are busy feeding chicks too.
When the web connection went live at the Lincoln peregrines back in May, the team were really excited to see the peregrines were back and nesting on the south west corner of the cathedral tower. It's just a shame that they decided to set up home in the nest without the camera...
The female appeared to be sitting on eggs so the team couldn't move the camera to the new nest and they would need to get a new license. This week, however, both the adults have been seen leaving the nest and returning with food so there must be at least one chick in the nest. This means the team are now able to move the camera and we'll be able to get in on all the action. We'll let you know when the feed goes live!
Photo by Ben Hall