NO NEWS

Several of you have been in contact asking whether our birds have returned yet but I’m afraid that there is no news yet. I am particularly concerned about JW6 (Juno) who is 16 days’ late from her 2023 arrival date and 6 days’ late from her 2022 arrival. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that she will still arrive but the vast majority of monitored birds have arrived on time or early this year, so her arrival this late would be unusual. I’d like to think that she’s taking her time because she had to wait over 3 weeks for Samson to arrive last year but, sadly, ospreys don’t operate like that. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that she does eventually arrive.

Samson is right in the middle of his arrival window. The earliest he arrived was 30 March and the latest was 15 April so I’m not too concerned about him yet. However, it’s in his interests to arrive as soon as possible if JW6 hasn’t survived as he’ll need to find another mate quickly if he is to breed this year. It’s sounds a bit heartless but it is the harsh reality for ospreys when they have such a short bracket of opportunity in which to breed.

The nest is looking very good although a lawnmower might be needed soon and it has survived the pummelling of the wind and rain over the last few days. Returning ospreys could be forgiven for thinking that the tree is located in the middle of a lake if they had arrived this week.

You know what they’ve been like in the past. I hope that merely writing about their non-arrival will cause Samson and Juno to both be sitting on the nest when I go down tomorrow morning. I will never have been more pleased to be wrong if that was to be the case.