I saw my first ospreys this morning, the old male at nest A16 in Badenoch busily nest building watched by an unringed female from a high perch. She went to the nest twice but he wasn’t interested and she was worried by people not far away. The old female is used to people, just like her mate. At the next nest, A05, the male was at the nest and another male was circling high overhead. So it’s all go on the first day of wintry weather after an incredible spell of amazingly summer weather. We have built or rebuilt four osprey nests damaged by storms in recent weeks, and built another yesterday afternoon. On Thursday, I checked nest A11 and found that the ancient nest belonging to female green J and male blue XD had become so heavy that it had fallen out of the tree. Blue XD had been trying to build in the next door tree but the sticks kept falling to the ground because the fork was not secure. When I got home Richard Thaxton phoned to say they had a male intruder setting up camp at Loch Garten with white EJ. I was able to say this was blue XD, so arranged to rebuild his nest quickly. Richard and Ian Perks joined me Saturday afternoon. I decided to build a replacement nest, for this old established pair, in the next door dead pine selected by blue XD and in less than a couple hours we had completed it. Hope it helps as I hear today that the Loch Garten male, Odin, is back – so blue XD should go back home and tidy up his new eyrie for the arrival of green J.
Rebuilt nest for pair A11
