Yesterday was the most appalling day of rain; it started overnight and just kept just bucketing down all day. By evening the small river across from my house was a raging torrent and as I looked out into the gloom before going to my warm bed, I just could not help but think of the female ospreys on their tree top nests trying to keep their young ones warm and alive. I was sure they would have been absolutely soaked and they would need to be really good mothers to keep the chicks sheltered. And the males would find it really difficult to find fish in the flooded waters. This morning the rain was still pouring down and everywhere was flooded. At least I knew from the weather forecast that it was due to stop at midday, but the female ospreys didn’t and they just had to sit there crouched over the young, open to the elements.
At midday it did stop, within an hour there was a nice breeze, and soon the sun came out. Late afternoon I decided I would go round and monitor the nests in the closest part of Moray to my house. At the first nest, B01 – what I still call Logie’s old nest, the male was perched in the sunshine on his favourite dead Scots pine and his mate was carefully feeding her young in the top of the larch tree. Already their feathers were dry and he had obviously just brought in a fish. The young at this nest are under a week old so I could see her putting tiny bits of fish down into the nest but I did not see her chicks. At the next site, the female was stretching her wings above the nest, quickly brought a small stick back and added it to her big eyrie and then shuffled back to keep her brood warm. Next stop it was domestic bliss in the tall tree by a barley field; female feeding young and her mate perched on the side of the nest – he again must have just brought home a fish. It was beautiful watching them through my telescope against the evening sun.
I next checked on Morven, an old well-known female. She was the last one to lay eggs in this area and when I scoped her nest from my car I could not see anything. But then just the white top of her head poked above the edge of the nest. She was sitting very tight incubating eggs and keeping very low down in her nest. At the next site, the earliest breeder in this area, the chicks must have been recently fed for they were lying quiet in the nest while their mother stood on the edge preening her feathers. My final visit was to the eyrie used for many years by Beatrice; the new female there was sitting high in the nest and she was brooding very small young. Six pairs of ospreys and all had come through the appalling weather safely. These female ospreys really have to put up with some bad weather and I’m always impressed by how well they protect their young from very heavy rain – I’m told we had 2 inches in 24 hours! But what I do know is that if heavy rain continues for more than two days and nights, young ospreys do die in their nests. Thankfully not this time.
