THREE CHICKS AND A BIT OF DRAMA

When the camera switched on at 0500, 2 things were immediately apparent. First was that there had already been a fish delivery and JW6 was busy tearing it apart to feed her family and second, that we now had 3 chicks, the youngest of which had hatched sometime in the previous 11 hours when the camera had been switched off. It’s a lot smaller than its 2 siblings, having hatched 3 days after chick 2 but still managed to get a few mouthfuls of fish in the first two feeds of the day, which was more than enough for it on day one.

The rest of today was taken with an ongoing battle between JW6 who wanted to brood the chicks or at least keep them under her wings and the 2 larger chicks who were determined to squirm out from underneath her to see what was going on outside. I think a score draw was finally declared.

Saturday saw some different action in that I received a call at home in the morning from a local rescue saying that one of the ospreys at Born in Scotland had got itself trapped 3/4 of the way up at telegraph pole! Grabbing my falconry glove and with my heart in my mouth, I raced to the car and did my level best to set a new land speed record down to the site (only joking, officer!). When I got there, I discovered the member of public who reported it to the rescue. Luckily, the bird was far more accessible than the rescue had suggested to me, being only about 7ft up, and it was, in fact, one of the local buzzards and not an osprey. It was a reasonable mistake to make as it was in a right tangle with having caught its wing in a barbed wire frame on the pole, designed to stop people climbing up. There was no way it could get itself free as its entire weight was forcing it further onto the barbed wire. We got a ladder and I was able to take the bird’s weight and release its wing. We took the very peeved buzzard to be checked over by a vet and, after she sprayed it with bright blue disinfectant where the barbed wire had caught the flesh of the wing, she said the wing looked fine and there were no breaks. A couple of feathers were permanently damaged but I could see that the rest would be sorted by a good preen. We returned to the site and released the bird, which flew away strongly. It’s a local bird and easily recognised by having a gap in its tail, so I’ll be keeping a look out for it and making sure it’s continuing to be able to look after its family.

Returning to the ospreys, it is to be hoped that the next few days see some large fish being delivered to the nest which will be enough to sate the larger chicks and leave enough for the little one to do a bit of catching up. It’s always tough to watch them having to wait in turn to be fed but Samson has experience of having 3 chicks, having successfully raised 3 in 2015, 2016 and 2017. He has been doing superbly so far at keeping the nest well supplied; fingers crossed his fishing skills will continue to be rewarded.