EGG UPDATE

Augusta laid her second egg yesterday, so I think it’s probable that the first egg was laid on Wednesday, for those of you keeping count on such things. Things have been going quite smoothly for our pair so far with decent fish availability and nice weather. There have been a couple of ringed intruders but both have been seen off before landing on the nest. One cheekily followed Samson in when he arrived with a fish and the other took advantage of Samson’s absence to hover over the nest before being sent on his way by an irate Augusta. I was rather pleased to have been up watching the screen when the first intruder came and so was able to obtain a screenshot not only of the 2 eggs, but also of Samson with the fish AND of the intruder flying off in the background! I will let you know details of the birds when we receive information about their rings.

I have however been very remiss in not thanking the people helping to get everything ready for this season, bearing in mind the difficulties we have had. I’d like to thank Gen and Louise at Solwise, a super company based in Hull, who were fantastic in helping me sort through the various options when last year’s WiFi units died on us. Setting up a new system, virtually from scratch, necessitated my learning a lot of new information and they were incredible at supporting me and investigating options, even when it didn’t fall within their field of expertise. I’d also like to thank David Loveluck, a friend of a friend who helped with another stage of the electrics, even making special connectors for me. Then there was Björn who climbed the tree to replace the camera and suddenly found himself carrying out emergency repairs on the nest, which had lurched to a dangerous angle when some of its support branches had been snapped during an earlier storm. He was ably assisted by Malcolm and Kate at ground level, sending up equipment and a steady supply of appropriate wood to strengthen the nest foundations. It was pitch dark when Björn had finished, having been up there for over 6 hours. He descended with the illumination being provided by our car headlights! We couldn’t have got where we are without all these people, mostly volunteers, but all going above and beyond to achieve the goal of us being able to watch the ospreys safely working on raising a family in 2026. Thank you to them all.

The third and probably last egg will arrive Mon/Tue and then we have the long wait of incubation, usually of between 37-42 days. I’ll let you know when we have the full clutch and also any information we have about the intruders.