FIRST EGG

I have some good news and an apology. The news is that, after 16 days together, Samson and Augusta (Blue 500) have their first egg of 2026. It was laid either late yesterday or today (23rd) and Samson has been his normal enthusiastic self about taking as much of the incubation and guarding duties as he can. He has spent much of the time standing over the egg, rather than incubating it, which is common practice with the first and second eggs; concerted incubating doesn’t start in most cases until the clutch is complete. Augusta, on the other hand, has spent most of her time lying down in the nest, apart from when Samson does his naughty thing of teasing her with a fish by overflying the nest and then going off to eat part of it elsewhere.

She got quite ratty today and he realised that he probably had pushed her a little too far and he hurriedly handed over the majority of the fish, which she took to eat in peace. We might be able to narrow down the time frame a little if we can ascertain when the second egg is laid but the reason we can’t be more precise is explained in the next paragraph.

The apology is that, sadly, the camera is refusing to recognise the sd card that would hold the recordings of the activity on the nest. As the card is in the camera itself, it is inaccessible and it means that we will be unable to get recordings at all until we next go to the nest. Unless we have an emergency that requires us to climb the tree, and let’s be honest, we’ve had emergencies of one sort of another every year so far and it would be nice to omit the drama for 2026, we won’t be able to resolve the problem until any chicks we have are ringed. So we are left with screenshots when one of us is watching the action ”live” and distance shots from either ourselves or people visiting the site and kindly allowing us to use their photographs, like Bruce Carrington whose shots appear in this post.

I know this lack of coverage is unfortunate and means that reporting will be limited to when one of us is actually on site; we have had an incredibly frustrating start to the season but, thankfully, the most important part is that the birds are safely back and are on course to have a new family. Fish supplies are looking good so far this year and human repairs to the nest (followed by re-repairs by the ospreys!) should hopefully ensure a safe haven for that family. Anything else is a bonus and I will do my best to provide as much coverage as I can. If any of you are visiting and take pictures that you think we could use, the easiest way to contact me if I’m not there is to drop a note on the most recent blog and I’ll get in touch direct.