INTERLUDE

I’m never sure if readers want to know whether there’s no news or not, if that makes sense, so here is my report about what’s going on at the nest. it’s all very routine and quiet as incubation passes the half way stage.

The standard day is that, shortly after the camera comes on at 0430, we usually see a shift change over as Samson comes in to relieve 500 (Augusta) who will have been incubating overnight. She usually disappears for about half an hour, for a wing and leg stretch and an opportunity to bathe, and there is then a period where the two of them swap and change over incubation duties and bring a few bits and pieces in just to add to the nest. He will often then disappear for a couple of hours before returning late morning. I expect he’s fishing but he doesn’t always return with a fish, so probably sometimes finds somewhere quiet to have his breakfast. If he does bring a fish back, she normally takes it, flies off to eat the first few bites and then returns to the nest perch to finish it off. He usually then does more of the incubating into the early afternoon while she spends a lot of the time sitting on the nest perch. He will go fishing again mid afternoon and usually brings back the largest fish of the day, after a couple of hours. He still has a tendency to be reluctant to hand this fish over, unless she is hungry and is quick off the mark, but if she is still full from the morning fish, she’ll let him have the major share. He’ll bring another fish in later on in the evening. We have been incredibly lucky with the weather so supplies have been good and both seem satisfied.

We haven’t had any osprey intruders since those reported in the last blog but that isn’t to say that we have had nothing left to look at. In fact, we’ve probably had the most activity of non-osprey wildlife during the last few weeks that I can remember.

On 11 May, for example, within a couple of hours we had a hare running directly towards us, being pursued by a fox, and then a close inspection of the nest by a red kite, still quite an uncommon sight around this area.

I don’t think the hare was ever in any danger as it seemed only in 2nd gear whereas the fox seemed almost flat out but neither were aware of us until they got very close. The first we noticed were the 2 clouds of dust being kicked up as they ran along one of the tractor tracks in the field.

In addition, there have been clouds of butterflies, mainly orange tips and peacocks, with one suicidal wall, which kept landing just where I was about to put my feet when I was walking along the river bank. The sand martins have been busy nesting in the sand cliff along the river and seem to have a much better supply of insects than last year. The highlight from the past couple of weeks was probably two views one of the brewery workers got of, first, some roe deer, close to the buildings and then, second, a very large dog otter, trotting along the bank.

We haven’t seen as much of the kingfishers as we normally do but there have been one or two sightings, so we know that they are around. The heron is ever present and we see and hear numerous other bird species as well.

So there’s lots going on to keep us entertained while we watch and wait for the next stage in the ospreys’ 2025 saga. My best stab of a pin in the calendar is for hatching to start around 6 Jun and I’ll keep you updated with any happenings before then.