ALL SET FOR THE WAITING GAME

The happy reunion of Samson and JW6 (Juno) took place moments after I pressed the “publish” button on my last blog. Some very active bonding between the two birds took place within a few minutes and has continued unabated since!

Samson has also fulfilled his side of the bargain with a steady supply of fish being brought to the nest. We’ve seen brown trout, sea trout and grayling being brought back in but no sign of his favoured pike just yet. There has also been lots of nesting material being brought in, some more useful than others, and lots of shuffling and reshuffling of sticks and soft grass until the nest meets the approval of both birds. Neither seem the least bit affected by the change in its size and shape from last year but then, if you’ve just flown north for possibly thousands of miles, you’re not likely to be too picky about the decor, are you?

All things being equal, we should expect their first egg to be laid sometime this week and so, with impeccable timing, the camera system has developed a fault and we’ve had no pictures for the last couple of days. We’ve hopefully isolated the problem and I am keeping my fingers crossed that we get it resolved before Juno decides to lay but I’m not promising anything; you know what she’s like!

I was delighted to hear from Kielder that PY0, our middle chick from the 2017 brood, has made the journey north safely and is making a serious bid for one of the spare nests there this year. It would be nice to confirm that Samson was a grandad, as he might be already if any of his female offspring have found mates and settled down.

In the meantime, I’m hoping that the weather will improve because it’ll be no fun for JW6 having to incubate in that biting wind we’ve experienced in the last few days …and it’s not a lot of fun for the watchers either.