Over the weekend here in the Tweed Valley, our ospreys have been settling down to the long and patient task of incubating their egg. As yet there is still only one egg, but because the nest is so deeply cup shaped, it may be a few days before we can confirm the presence of another egg as we would normally expect. This pair of birds have historically laid two or three each year for the last five years.
It seems our male, being impatient for the first egg to arrive has spent most of his time digging out the centre of the nest ( all that kicking may have been frustration!) and adding yet more moss which is doing a great job of hiding the eggs from view. After a weekend of perfect sunshine it turned very cold again yesterday so all that insulation certainly came in handy though.
Our male osprey has been showing himself to be his usual considerate and devoted self- taking a turn at least once a day to sit on the egg. Usually when he arrives back with a fish , the female will take it off to eat it and he will sit in the nest- carefully curling his long talons in to avoid endangering the egg. He can sit for up to an hour a half , showing unusual paternal devotion.
Let's hope that both birds soon have another egg to lavish attention on!
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