Hello everyone. Thank you for your patience. I hadn’t realised that it was quite so long since I’d updated you on the progress at the nest. As you will, I hope, have realised that no news has definitely been good news and the chicks have been thriving with a good supply of fish and attentive parents. They have exploded in size and one of the advantages of still having the infertile egg in the nest is that you can easily compare how they have grown. Chick no 1 (let’s call it C1)’s foot is now the same size as the egg. It seems incredible to think that the whole chick fitted inside a similar one only a few weeks ago. The development of the wings has been the most impressive to me. From little stubs they have grown into long, graceful wings that, in a couple of weeks, will bear them up into the sky with powerful strokes as a precursor to their long migration; it’s almost unbelievable. Food has been mostly plentiful and both chicks spent a lot of the first few weeks either eating or in a food coma/sleeping it off. They have grown far more active in the last couple of weeks and are now fully into the wing exercising phase. Seeing the chaos that 2 chicks can have on a nest when they are both flapping at the same time, I hate to think how they coped on nests with 4 chicks! There has been very little sibling rivalry although 2 days of bad weather when Samson was unable to bring as much food as normal did result in a few nasty sessions where C1 gave its sibling a bit of a battering. It looks brutal when they grab the nape of the other’s neck and shake them backwards and forwards but, thankfully, it only lasted a couple of days and C2 quickly learned how to shield itself from the worst of the bullying.

The chicks have also started to feed themselves and have attempted to steal from 500’s talons as soon as she has relieved Samson of his catch. She has started to delay taking the fish from Samson, encouraging the chicks to come forward but that can be risky, as Samson will see any delay in exchanging the fish as a sign that he can keep it and will fly off with it. There’s an amusing scene when he arrives and the other 3 are looking at each other, working out who’s going to make the first move, while he’s alert for an opportunity to escape with the prize. He no doubt has memories of previous chicks fighting over fish and grabbing his legs in a frenzy to be first and is trying to prevent a reoccurrence.

When not feeding the chicks, 500 has spent time bringing in sticks (she is still an amateur in comparison with the pair at Loch Arkaig for those of you who follow that nest, but she’s bringing in some very weird shapes and sizes of branch) and also talons full of grass to provide a good landing and take off surface on the nest for when the chicks finally fledge.

We have an intruding osprey on most days but they stay well away and out of view of the camera so I can’t tell how many intrusions are by different birds. Augusta caught a fish, a grayling, on one day when Samson had been struggling with the weather. The chicks were slow to realise that she had brought something in but then C1 pounced and grabbed the fish for itself. I was a little concerned that C2 had had very little up to that stage in the day but Samson redeemed himself only a few minutes later by bringing in a sizeable trout which Augusta, C2 and then he enjoyed while C1 was struggling with its grayling. The rest of her time is spent on the nest perch or close to the nest but not always in sight of the camera. Samson is spending virtually no time in the nest, only what time he needs to deliver fish but when the family are temporarily all satisfied, he sometimes takes time to sit on the nest perch and look proudly out on his domain.

The only downside is that it looks like that we will be unable to get the chicks ringed this year. Our ringer is unable to climb at present and can’t find another climber to do this aspect of the work in the timescale required. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, as with so many aspects of osprey life, the window of opportunity for ringing the chicks is very small. They have to be large enough to be able to fit the rings snugly around their ankles without them slipping off or pinching too tightly but young enough to not try and prematurely fledge when the nest is approached; the nest is about 130 ft up from the field. We have now just about reached the latter stage and so ringing will become impractical and dangerous for the chicks. If it doesn’t happen and we aren’t able to confirm all the data we take at the same time, we will also have difficulty in deciding the sex of the birds. Weight and dimensions are the most accurate way we have but I’m going to hazard a guess that C1 is female. She is much bigger than C2, even more so than can be expected with the 4 days’ difference in age, and has the thicker ankles and legs that are normally associated with the females. C2 is more difficult to judge but could be a smaller female or a male towards the top end of the range; for the purposes of distinguishing them on here, I will refer to C2 as a male. No doubt, those assumptions are entirely wrong and the birds will have fooled me once again, but I’ll stick with it, regardless.

So, the next thing is going to be the fledge of the two chicks. It’s always a heart in mouth time. Some launch off, very confident, and others are far more wary. Those of you who have been with me for a while will recall that, 2 years ago, our male did a graceful launch, flight and landing when he fledged. The female, on the other hand, crashed through branches on take off and only just managed to pull away to avoid coming down in the field. She then ‘arrived’ (I can’t call it a landing) on the nest perch with her talons out desperately trying to grip onto anything firm while at the same time dislodging her brother! We have a very benign surrounding area with large fields and no dense plantations of fir trees where chicks can get lost. Nevertheless, it is a worrying time. It’s now 10 years since we had to rescue a chick that had come down in a field of tall crops and couldn’t see out or get any lift to fly out. Luckily, we saw it and were able to rescue it and it flew back safely to the nest but the danger was clear.

I’ll let you know how fledging goes and chat about how the nest and family dynamics change once both birds fledge. See you then. In the meantime, I’ll remind you of that crazy first landing by the 2023 female chick.

I’m delighted to report that everything is going well, so far, on our nest, with Samson supplying fish on a very regular basis and 500 (Augusta) quickly becoming proficient at feeding the bottomless pits that are their 2 chicks.

The 4 days’ difference in age is very apparent, especially as chick #1 has now lost its fluff and is well into the ‘dinosaur’ stage, which is when growth seems to be particularly fast. Chick #2 is starting to follow suit and will continue to do its best to catch its sibling up. They are very well behaved at mealtimes, due to the abundance of food provided, and I’ve only seen the very occasional tiff, often started by chick #2! It hasn’t worked out that pecking its sibling is not a clever idea, especially when one is not yet very fast across the nest. Another bit of progress is that Augusta has now started to allow Samson to feed the chicks, something he has been desperate to do.

The third egg is still on the nest and can occasionally get in the way of feeding. I’d like to see the back of it but 500 still collects it under her when she broods the chicks and doesn’t seem to realise it’s unviable. She was very quick to stop incubating the eggs last year when the clutch failed, so I’m hoping she will soon push it out to the side of the nest and be done with it.

We’ve had good weather for most of the time but the 14th saw torrential rain with poor old 500 doing her best to keep the chicks warm and dry.

We’ve had a couple more intrusions over the last couple of weeks but only a very persistent 724, a bird hatched on a local nest in 2022, has been identified.

So, a positive report from our nest in all respects. Our hatchings were later than on many of the nests that have cameras installed, so even though several are getting to the ringing stage, we are still some way off that. We will let you know of any news as the chicks continue to grow.

Before I go, I’d like you to indulge me while I tell you about something that I was involved in yesterday that’s nothing to do with ospreys. I was sitting at home and suddenly saw something clinging to an outside wall of my house. I went to have a look and discovered a bat. Luckily, we have a wildlife rehabber in the next village who is particularly knowledgeable about bats. He advised that it being out in the day meant it probably needed rescuing, so I got a ladder out and, wearing gloves (a sensible move when you look at its teeth in the second photo!) and handling it with a cloth, I managed to get it into a box and down to the rehabber. He told me that it was a whiskered bat, one of the rarest species in Scotland, and he will keep it to rehydrate it and get it back to a healthy weight, before releasing it back here. I was really pleased to do my little bit to help this tiny creature. Fingers crossed it makes a full recovery and can be released quickly.

For those of you counting days, you will have noticed that there has been an ominous silence since chick #1 hatched overnight on 5/6 Jun and I’m sad to report that egg 2 did not hatch. It could have been infertile or could have been damaged at some stage; I doubt we’ll ever know but, the good news is that the chick from the third egg hatched this morning and was fully free of the egg shell at 0745.

It didn’t take much part in the feeds earlier in the day but had successfully fed by noon. Augusta seemed at first to be a little nonplussed at the arrival of this second mouth and she kept looking over at it when she was feeding #1 wondering how it had got there. Samson was also very interested in it and, as in the last few days, made some effort (albeit unsuccessful) to feed the older one. He has also been allowed to brood for the first time since hatching started and was alone on the nest when the camera came on this morning at 0430.

So it will be a 2 chick family and, although sad that the second egg did not hatch, I’m not unhappy that Augusta as a first time mum has only 2 chicks to rear. They both look strong and healthy and have a very experienced parent in Samson but there is little leeway for error in the life of a young osprey and we must hope that fortune favours them. In doing so, I would like to extend my condolences to my colleagues at Tweed Valley Osprey Project who sadly lost that incredible clutch which was incubated and would have been raised by the two females and possibly the absentee male. The combination of the male disappearing and the weather conditions making fishing so difficult was just too much for the family to survive. The margins are so small between success and failure. Fingers crossed our little family do well. The weather seems benign for the next few days, which is so important when they are so tiny and the fishing looks good. I will certainly keep you informed.

Augusta is a mum! Chick #1 hatched sometime overnight 5/6 Jun and was eager to have its first taste of fish.

Not surprisingly, Augusta’s first attempts to feed it (at about 0900) were hesitant and unsuccessful and she solved the problem by stopping eating herself and sitting on the 2 remaining eggs plus the chick! However, Samson provided another grayling at 1100 and she managed to give the hungry chick a good feed; by the time a mid afternoon trout arrived, she was confident in her feeding technique and continued tearing off chunks of fish until #1 collapsed sideways in a food coma! She then demolished the rest of the trout herself.

The second chick could well arrive tomorrow but the weather is due to be colder and wetter so it’s good that Samson is bringing in a steady supply of fish and Augusta has worked out how to feed a chick quickly and effectively. Hopefully, she will be able to feed however many mouths there are in dry spells between showers as it’s vital that they stay warm and dry to avoid losing body temperature – a real danger when they are this young.

We also had a persistent intruder this morning, a Scottish female who was inquisitive rather than aggressive but was most unwelcome all the same. I’ll give more details when I’ve worked out her ring number.

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.

As promised, I’m updating on the situation on the nest since the second egg was laid.

We had further intrusions by 565 on Sunday (4th) but, if she has been around since then, she certainly hasn’t come so close as to disturb the birds on the nest. An intruding bird when there are eggs or young chicks in the nest can cause disaster but it’s interesting, and a sign of her growing maturity, that Augusta tended to pancake rather than rear up when 565 attacked on Sunday, protecting the eggs from harm.

The big news is that we now have a full set of eggs, after Augusta laid her third egg at about 1335 today. It took some while before she gave us any sort of look at them and it wasn’t until Samson came in with a fish that we got a clear view. Samson wasn’t sure that being given some time incubating was worth the exchange of a sizeable meal and so a bit of a tug of war ensued.

However, having lost that battle, he did take a long look at the eggs and took some time to bathe in the (mainly) reflective glory of 3 eggs having been produced.

Augusta must have been delighted to stretch her legs and wings and also to take shelter in some shade to eat her fish. It looked really hot up there as there was absolutely no wind and no shade from about midday. Samson was soon sitting with his beak open, looking longingly at where Augusta was sitting in the cool, enjoying her late lunch. There are definitely downsides to the job of incubating, despite it being a favourite pastime of his!

A short blog to let you know that things on the nest are proceeding nicely and egg no 2 arrived at 1713 yesterday. There was further disturbance by a female intruder in the morning and early afternoon but she never got close enough to see a ring number. 565 intruded after the first egg was laid and, although we haven’t seen her in the intervening 3 days, I would expect it to have been her again yesterday.

Anyway, it wasn’t enough to stop Augusta and she very quickly stood up after laying and backed off the eggs to show Samson the latest arrival. He was less excited than 3 days ago but his quick circular flight from the nest perch to the nest was enough to show him a far more interesting sight; Augusta had left some of the large trout he’d brought in earlier and he quickly grabbed it and flew off again to consume it away from the nest.

I think she was rather assuming he was flying around to come in and take over incubating while she recovered from the discomfort of laying the egg, hence her standing up. She probably wasn’t best pleased to find that, not only had he not done so, but he had also stolen the remainder of the fish (I think Samson likes to live life on the edge)!

The third egg is due on Tue and I expect that will be the completion of the clutch. Occasionally, a female will lay 4 eggs but that is usually when nests have a guaranteed good supply of fish and, as regular readers will know, that has not been the case with this nest. Nevertheless, things are looking better so far this year as far as fish supplies are concerned, so fingers crossed that remains the case. We then will settle in for the long wait on incubation with hatching not due until the first two weeks of Jun.

I was waiting until an egg appeared before writing this blog but was getting concerned that time was passing and I was still waiting for the event. So yesterday I announced that I wasn’t going to wait any longer and would have to write and cover the egg arrival on a later blog. I jest not but, 2 and a half hours after I made that announcement to the people I was with at the time, Augusta (Blue 500) laid her first egg of the season! Why do they constantly make me eat my words? It’s hardly a challenge these days for them but they still seem to get enjoyment out of it. When will I learn not to make pronouncements that give them these opportunities?

Anyway, the first egg was laid on 30 Apr at 1544, with Samson in attendance, and we had our first view a few minutes later. As ever, Samson has shown a great deal of interest in its arrival and has been eager to take on incubation duties right away. 500 is more than happy to oblige and spent much of the rest of the day sitting up on the nest perch or standing beside Samson on the nest. She took over incubating overnight and they took turns with the egg today, either incubating it, guarding it, or shielding it from the heat (that doesn’t happen very often in Scotland!).

It’s been quite an eventful time since the last blog, with Samson and 500 re-establishing their bond after the traumas of last season. Thankfully, fish seem to have been in greater supply than they were last year and Samson has been able to bring decent sized trout and grayling back to the nest on a regular basis, and has kept 500 well fed.

However, he has been doing a lot of “teasing”, which is seen more frequently with brand new rather than established pairs. He flies in with a fish, sometimes overflying the nest or landing briefly, but any attempt by her to grab it results in him flying off and sitting in a nearby tree, sometimes but not always eating bits of the fish. This is repeated several times until she manages to grab and hang onto the fish or he gets bored and finally offers it to her. It has led to a number of wrestling matches on the nest and a couple of instances of one of them being dragged across the nest by the other with both still hanging on to the prize. She is certainly not as vocal as she was last year, so perhaps he is confused by her lack of food begging but I hope that that behaviour will stop now because we certainly don’t want any risk to eggs.

We have had three osprey intruders since Samson returned. On 15 Apr, we had a left leg ringed male osprey do a couple of low level attacks on the nest but without stopping. He came in so fast that it was impossible to read the ring number but he did not land as both resident birds successfully guarded the nest (even though Augusta fell off after the second pass).

On 22 Apr, we had a visit from male blue 680 who landed on the nest and then attempted to mate with Augusta. She shrugged him off and he disappeared. He visited us last year and was hatched in the local area in 2021 but clearly has yet to find a territory of his own.

The third ringed intruder was far more persistent. Blue 565, a female hatched at Threave in Dumfries and Galloway in 2021, attacked Augusta at about 0430 on 28 Apr while it was still dark, knocking her off the nesting perch, and the attacks continued on and off until about 0930 that morning. On several occasions, she landed on the nest when Augusta was also there, and they spent minutes staring each other out or waiting for one of them to make a move. In the end, Augusta completely lost patience and took flight, using the breeze to hover into position and she launched a fierce attack on 565 from directly above. 565 finally got the hint and disappeared, intruding at Kielder some 2 hours later.

The only downside over this period was that human intruders twice disturbed the birds from the nest. Both were dog walkers and I was able to stop one before they got very far because I was there. The second person walked right under the nest, causing Augusta to fly, and got to one of my notices (the walker had ignored my first notice). It was clear the notice was being read because he then turned and walked back but further out into the field (!), although the damage had already been done by then. I was too far away to call him or inform him of what he had done. I have large notices both ends of the tree line and in the fields both above and below; it couldn’t be clearer that people should not walk there but, I suppose there will always be those that don’t look or just ignore information. It is very frustrating.

The next egg is due to be laid on Sat, all things being equal but, with immaculate timing as ever, the computer is being a bit temperamental and refusing to download the videos. I’m hoping it’s my lack of techy know-how that’s to blame and that Jain, my IT whizz, will sort out the problem for me without any loss of service. Whatever happens I’ll be in touch with news next week.

Driving down the track this morning to where I park my car by the nest, I was feeling pretty despondent as Samson had only been this late once before and that was when a weather system over southern France and Spain had held up many of our migrating birds. I looked across the field to see an unusual silhouette of a bird. Was it? Could it be? The bird then dived into the field margin and came up with a large clump of dead grass which it proceeded to carry back across the field and I was sure. It was an osprey and I would bet money on it being Samson. I raced into where I could see the nest camera view and, sure enough, not any old osprey but my beloved Samson was sitting proudly on the nest clutching one of several piles of nest material he had already collected.

Scrolling back through the morning’s recording, I saw that he had arrived at about 1050 and, after a brief look round to see if his mate was around, had set straight to tidying and bringing more material for the nest.

Just before noon, he came back onto the nest and was keenly watching something above him which seemed to be circling and getting closer. He took off as it approached but circled back immediately when he realised that it was Blue 500 (Augusta), who hadn’t been seen on camera since 8th April but clearly had, as I had speculated in my last blog, been wandering around but keeping a close eye on her home nest.

She immediately started fish begging in that inimitable style of hers (if he had any doubts as to her identity, that would have dispelled them!) but he had more material gathering to do and kept her waiting for a while before finally disappearing downstream to do some fishing. I didn’t stay to see when he came back but I expect anyone in the vicinity when he returned would have been witness to a lovely sky dance from him to let everyone know. The boss and his lady were back.

I hope that writing blogs at past my bedtime as has been the case with both this one and the last one is not going to become the norm but I didn’t want to waste any time in telling you all that Blue 500 (Augusta) touched down on the nest at about 1230 yesterday. I made the error of taking a day off and she must have known this and sneaked in confident that I wouldn’t check the recording footage until this evening.

She hung around for a while and then disappeared for several minutes before having another short visit, just to check that Samson wasn’t hiding under a stick, before disappearing off downstream and not reappearing before the camera went off.

I didn’t see her when I was down there today but I had a relatively short visit. Now you’ll remember that last year, after she left the area supposedly on migration in early August, she had a wander around and had still only got as far as Cumbria by the beginning of September. So she is clearly not averse to checking out other nests in the area and I expect that’s what she will do now but nevertheless, will keep popping back to see if Samson has arrived. So we must all stroke lucky black cats or shake the hand of a chimney sweep or do whatever we think will bring Samson home quickly, before she finds anyone else to tempt her away. Several people have told me that they “have a feeling” about him arriving tomorrow. If that’s the case, I expect that I’ll be here this time tomorrow but, in the meantime, let’s celebrate the arrival of Augusta and her hopeful reunion to come with Samson.