RED FACES ALL AROUND!

Well, this is rather embarrassing.

I mentioned in my last blog about a new camera and equipment etc etc. Well, this week was testing week, making sure everything was up to speed and working as it should. Recording needed to be tested and a bit of fine tuning of the software was needed. I wasn’t expecting to start a proper osprey watch until next week.

So it was with some surprise when checking through some of the footage of Wednesday’s nest that we saw an unringed female osprey land on the nest perch at just after 4pm! I don’t recognise her from any of Samson’s previous visitors but I’ll have a better look at the pictures tomorrow. She stayed for about 5 minutes, being buzzed continuously by the local jackdaw pair before she left to find a quieter spot with more welcoming neighbours.

If that wasn’t enough, about an hour later, another female osprey came in from a downstream direction and landed right in the nest and it was Juno (JW6), our female! She looked magnificent, although I know you’ll think I’m biased, and arrived 9 days earlier than she had done last year. She sat for a while, surveying her territory before heading off, probably to find herself her supper.

I scrabbled around to get to yesterday’s recordings and, sure enough, as the light increased, she appeared on the nest at about 6am and stayed for about 3 hours, making one foray to collect some nesting material and moving one of the prepositioned sticks to a place she deemed more appropriate. She flew out of sight just after 9am and did not appear on camera again that day, although she could well have been on the dead tree for at least part of the day.

I have yet to download today’s recordings so I have no idea if she’s been on the nest much, although the weather has been so unstable she might not have wanted to stay in such an exposed position for long. I certainly didn’t see her when I was there for several hours this morning.

So, the birds have taken no time at all to rekindle the challenge of who’s the birdbrain and I’m already losing! However, I’m delighted that Juno is back and seems to have come straight in this year, rather than stopping off at Kielder. Samson needs to get his skates on if he’s sensible as we know from last year’s experience that Juno is not the most patient of birds. The earliest we’ve seen him in any year is 30 March. He’ll need to at least match that if he’s not to be in trouble with the missus before he even arrives!

Guess I’ll be starting osprey watch properly tomorrow then. I’ll let you know any updates.