Sunday 6 July 08: Osprey watch

I drove down to Lochgilphead to meet up with other twitchers and some Forestry Commission guides. We first went to the visitors’ centre at Barnluasgan where we had a briefing and a look at some osprey displays. To help protect the eggs and then the chicks from predators the team cut lower branches off the tree and they put aluminium round the lower part of the tree – these measures are particularly good at blocking “lunch” for pine martens. The nest we were going to have a look at is one of 15 breeding pairs in this area of Argyll – so numbers are on the up. While they ring as many of the birds as they can access, they’ve only had information back on one of them – one which was eaten by a crocodile. They think that the osprey went after a fish at the same time as the croc did…and when they opened the croc up (killed because it had been killing children) they found the ring number.
We then headed for the lochside (Loch Sween) where we were able to watch two adults and two chicks on the nest. One of the adults periodically had a wee cruise around. The other stretched its wings periodically in the nest, while the chicks sat tight.