A Pair of Ospreys

None of your trout farm specials here, wild birds behaving naturally. I have known of this Osprey site for some years, thanks to Dawn and Jim, and I try to make one visit each time we go to Scotland, normally in June. I have held off publishing these photos to minimise disturbance to the birds and I don't post pictures of nesting birds in the breeding season. That said, on this occasion there were members of the public between my camera and the nest.! This 13 year old female wasn't bothered in the least, she has been on this site for at least ten years and as far as I know has successfully raised offspring every year.  I have heard her alarm calls only once - when a guy on a bright orange paddleboard, wearing a bright orange wetsuit and carrying a bright orange camera got too close - no wonder she was perturbed. 

We visited the last week in June and it was at the height of the heatwave in Scotland, the gritters were out - the main road through the village had melted and they were applying sand to the road surface. When we arrived only the female was in attendance and the sun was beating down, you could see her panting and "parasolling" to shade the chicks. The male had visited the nest with a pike about forty five minutes previous and was expected back any time. However, two hours later there was still no sign of him, I settled down under the shade of a tree, camera pointed at the nest and waited. 

Panting.....

.... shading the young.

Finally a sighting, he was returning with another pike and thankfully, he circled the nest several times giving some perfect views.

However, there was a major problem, he had been followed back to the nest by a larger male and that was complicating matters. Now our resident male is a fairly new partner and I have to say that he isn't a large bird by any means. He did seem to have some experience though as, having touched down on the nest, he appeared to realise that the intruder was a threat so departed.

Unfortunately the female also left the nest and for a brief time the chicks were unguarded, luckily both parents returned but the male departed again, not letting go of his pike and escorted the larger male off the premises.

Straight over my head

The male sat in a nearby tree, reluctant to visit the nest whilst the intruder was about. Lots of cloaking the prey and looking up at the threat accompanied by loud calling

In the mayhem I managed to capture what I think was the male that was causing the problem, I didn't think it was carrying any rings and was identified by having one feather missing.

A larger bird.

After what seemed an interminable wait our bird returned once again, sat in a nearby tree and proceeded to eat the pike's head. Finally the family were fed and when we departed calm and serenity had returned to the locality.