UP AND AWAY

Before we get onto the main news of this blog I just wanted to mention an amusing incident from a few days ago. Fish were a little harder to come by last week and we had a bit more attempted bullying by C1 on C2 but he has now discovered a marvellous way of keeping his sister at bay. When she tried to get to the back of his head, he turned and pushed his bottom up into her face. The net result was a beak full of tail feathers and a mystified looking bully. Well done, C2!

After much wing flapping, hovering and a fair bit of peering over the edge of the nest, C1 fledged today at 1348. Yesterday, she’d hovered straight up out of sight and onto the branch to which the camera is secured. That clearly took all of her courage and it was a good 90 minutes before she had enough confidence to lower herself back down onto the nest. For the rest of yesterday, her hovers were much more reserved but it was only a matter of timing for her today. It was virtually windless, so she was able to control her movements a lot better than yesterday and she spent the morning eating and building up her courage. A couple of lovely ladies from Hawick, who didn’t know about the ospreys here and had just come for a walk, came up to watch the screen and so were able to witness the magical moment of C1’s maiden flight. All 3 of us were on the edge of our chairs as she did a big jump across the nest, had a peer over the edge, a nice rouse of her feathers and then finally launched from the nest, to a cheer from us. She did a couple of circuits and I was touched to see that Samson, who was hiding away in one of his man sheds, immediately got airborne to monitor her flight and make sure she was safe. She came in a bit fast and with all talons extended, ready to grab whatever bit of nest she could, and landed right on Augusta’s back! There followed a bit of a scrabble as Augusta tried to get her off and C1 was determined not to unhook her claws from the safety of something solid. After getting her breath back, there was no stopping her and she spent the next hour or so doing circuits and practising a variety of landing techniques, before withdrawing, exhausted by the excitement, to the bottom of the nest for a snooze.

C2 in the meantime was totally unimpressed by her efforts but was keen to try it for himself, wing beating enthusiastically and even managing to get airborne, just, a couple of times. It won’t be long before he joins his sister and then the final stage will commence.

Samson will continue to bring food in but the big change will be that Augusta will start to disengage herself from her nest duties and will start fishing for herself to build up strength for her migration. She will probably only have a couple more weeks here before setting off to begin her journey south. I imagine she will go directly this time, unlike last year where she spent about a month loitering around the Tweed area before being seen at Foulshaw Moss nest in Cumbria on 2 Sep where she was hoping (but failed) to persuade the male there to feed her. In the meantime, the youngsters will build up their strength and flying skills and will get to know the area as well as hone their instinctive abilities to fish. Now is a great time to look for ospreys as the fledgling birds will all be doing the same thing and so there will be far more ospreys than usual on the wing and around stretches of water. So if you are lucky enough to live around an area where ospreys are known to be, keep your eyes to the skies and your ears open for their characteristic calling.

I’ll report in when C2 fledges.