Southern skies beckon soon.

A lonely chick was seen at the main nest site on Monday 12^th August, it flew on to the nest and was calling repeatedly. We could not see if there was an adult nearby or whether it was just calling out in the hopes that a parent may be in the vicinity with a tasty fish to hand over. The male bird, white leg ring SS appeared on the nest site on 13^th August with a really big fish and was feeding himself. One of the chicks was keeping him close company and calling and begging for food. The chick is a good deal larger than her dad, so this is presumably a female chick. Her hungry father was having a good feed for himself and did not appear too keen to share his prize.

The chicks by now are proficient fliers and we would hope that they are gaining the hunting skills that will make them independent. Survival depends on the young birds being able to hunt for themselves, as soon they will need to make their solo migration journeys to Africa.

It could be that the male may be reluctant to share a meal at this late stage because he will be very aware that the chicks must make their own way without his support soon. He is the parent that will provide the finishing school for his offspring, as by now their mum has broken ties with them and may even have moved on. She will make her way slowly south, feeding up and getting herself back into peak condition after raising another brood over the summer. We have no idea how old she is because she is not ringed. This has certainly been her 10^th season with male, white leg ring SS, but we believe that she was possibly the bird that occupied the main nest with another unringed male the year before SS arrived. He is fifteen years old and in his prime and we hope that they will both return next year for their eleventh year together. It is worth visiting the osprey centres to catch a glimpse of the family before they leave and although the nest may be empty sometimes when the family are off hunting, we are still seeing Dad and the chicks popping back to feed from time to time.

The Kailzie Wildlife Festival was held last weekend at Kailzie Gardens and was a great success. The weekend was packed with wildlife themed family entertainment, with demonstrations of bird ringing, bat and bird box making, guided walks, photography, pond dipping, mammal trapping, stalls and birds of prey. One of the star attractions was the magnificent golden eagle called Captain, a ferret on a lead kept what appeared to be a critical eye on proceedings and a mighty Eagle Owl greeted visitors with a steely orange eyed gaze.

The festival was organised by the Friends of Kailzie Wildlife as part of the KLAWED Project with funding from Leader and SNH.

www.kailziewildlife.org.uk

St Ronan's kids are treated to osprey ringing

On Monday 1st July, the chicks from the main osprey nest were ringed. The adult birds, (white leg ring SS) and his un-ringed female are in their tenth season at the nest and this batch of three chicks brings their total number of chicks raised in ten years to 26.


Tony Lightley with pupils from St.Ronan's Primary School



The children from Class P4/5 have been working all summer term on a celebration book for the ospreys 10th anniversary and to thank them for all their hard work and enthusiasm, a special trip was organised by Forestry Commission Scotland to take the children to see the young ospreys being ringed, as they are now six weeks old and soon will be making their first flight.

The chicks were lowered to the forest  floor where Tony Lightley, (Conservation Manager for FCS) and his colleague Ronnie Graham put the leg rings on to the birds, weighed them and measured them. The birds were fitted with unique BTO rings on their right legs, which carry a serial number which identifies the bird and a large Darvic ring on their left leg which is an alpha numeric identification ring which can be read at a distance through a telescope or binoculars, so that birds can be tracked over their lifetime to study their movements and progress in the future.



The class of P4/5 children were further treated, in that Tony arranged for the leg rings to have lettering that relates to their class number. So, the chicks were given rings with the letters CL4, CL5 and the third chick CL6, as the pupils will be moving into Class 6 next term.  It will be lovely if we hear of these birds in the future, whether they return to this area to breed when they are old enough, or if we receive sightings of them wherever they may turn up.  The young chicks will make their very first migration to Africa by the end of this summer, once they have mastered flight and fishing techniques, which their skilled parents will teach them.



Ronan Ted, (the school mascot ) gets a surprise visit too!



The production of the tenth anniversary book has been the joint project between Tweed Valley Osprey Project and the Friends of Kailzie Wildlife, working with the P4/5 pupils of St. Ronan’s Primary School and we received a grant from Awards 4 All to produce 10,000 copies, which will be available from August.

The school have a mascot called Ronan which is a little teddy bear, decked out in school uniform complete with school tie. Ronan Ted accompanied the children on their visit and was treated to a surprise of his own. Tony took him up to the nest for a quick look when he put the chicks back after they had been ringed!



Three ringed chicks back in the nest after ringing.



The children thoroughly enjoyed their visit, it was a very special day out to see such a wonderful osprey family and a thoroughly deserved opportunity for children who have immersed themselves in this project work with so much enthusiasm.

Depute Head, Jan Lister who accompanied the children on their visit said, ‘’ Today has been a great opportunity for the children to see at first hand , the splendour of these young ospreys before they embark on their remarkable journey to West Africa. In school for the last few weeks the children have been learning about the conservation of these remarkable birds and their successful return to breed in the Scottish Borders. Today, that learning was brought to life and has given them many memories which will last a lifetime. We are very grateful for having had this opportunity”.



Highs and Lows at the Tweed Valley Nests



Three tiny osprey chicks hatched



A hat trick of osprey chicks, have hatched this week. The first osprey chick hatched on 22nd May exactly 40 days since it was laid,  followed by the second and then the third chick on consecutive days.

The chicks are so fragile and tiny looking when they first hatch, looking like tiny fluffy ping pong ball heads with the characteristic dark eye-stripe marking their osprey identity.

After hatching, they wobble about and strain to reach up to mum as she leans in to feed them with tiny scraps of raw fish torn straight from the live catch brought in by her faithful partner, white leg ring SS.

After only a couple of days the chicks begin to find strength and they are reaching up and stretching and holding their heads steady, to receive meals. They grow at a phenomenal rate on the diet of raw fish which is superbly rich in protein. Dad will have to work really hard to make sure that he brings in enough fish to feed his family, so that they will become big and strong. He is a very good provider and this is his tenth brood of chicks this year with the same unringed female. They are very experienced parents and they take great care of their young.

Tragedy Strikes



Sadly, the heron family that was on camera with two chicks hatched and one egg still not hatched, has been struck by tragedy. Firstly one chick seemed to have disappeared followed by the second chick gone by the next morning. This just left the single egg and the next day when the cameras came on, even the egg had vanished. We keep seeing the sad parent birds dropping in to the nest and standing and looking but their whole brood for the year have vanished. We did not see what happened but we have witnessed the shadowy black form of a crow lurking in the tree top and it would seem that it must have predated on the young chicks and then returned to take the egg too.

We have often made reference to the contrasting parenting skills of the two species of osprey and heron. Herons make little effort to safeguard their young and leave them for long periods of time which leaves them open to all manner of dangers. The birds have paid a high price this year for their nesting strategy. The ospreys, by comparison are very attentive to their young and there is always one of the parents at the nest to guard their brood. They will see off any threat with tenacity and this has made them the successful breeders that they are on the main nest.

The chicks will grow quickly and the daily family life can be viewed on high definition camera in real time in the two visitor centres of Glentress Wildwatch room in Glentress Forest and in the Osprey and Nature Watch Centre at Kailzie Gardens.



Growing Chicks are now wing stretching.



Young ospreys play dead



The osprey chicks have survived the worst that the good old British weather has managed to throw at them and it was really heart - warming to see relaxed and healthy large chicks in the nest yesterday.

Tensions seem to have eased between the siblings too, and the youngest chick has apparently regained an appetite. The male bird with white leg ring SS continues to exploit his fishing source and is bringing in lovely big trout to feed the young brood.

Plenty of relaxed wing stretching was witnessed at the nest today and this is a good sign as the youngsters flex their muscles and develop their bodies in preparation for flight which will only be a couple of weeks away now.

Ringing the young chicks will be taking place shortly under licence with Tony Lightley, the Forestry Commission Scotland Conservation Manager and his team of helpers.

This will involve accessing the nest and removing the youngsters to fit their legs with Darvic ring and BTO ring so that we can gain an insight into their distribution once they have left the nest. Sightings of the large Darvic rings with the coloured background and lettering can be used to trace the origin of birds seen.

This year so far we have received news that Tweed Valley raised birds have appeared at Leighton Moss, and Tweed Valley osprey with blue Darvic leg ring ‘HF’, turned up at Dyfi Opsrey Project in Wales on 4th June - probably trying to get a spot of stardom on Springwatch!

Tweed Valley-raised chicks dispersing around the country is superb news for us, as it is so good to know that birds are returning after successful migration journeys.

Keep up to date with our ospreys progress and view images on the new FCS facebook page

Male Osprey taking on his role as "Man of the nest"



One of our Ospreys incubating at the nest

 Things are going really well for our parents to be in Tweed Valley.

The pair have spent the first part of the incubation season going off to hunt for themselves and then taking it in turns to incubate the eggs.

They seem to have a system all worked out and operate a rota which keeps the whole egg incubation period running as a slick operation.

Things have changed this week though - a slight shift in behaviour - the male (White leg ring SS) has started to hunt for his lady!



Female osprey sets of with
our male's latest catch



He has been spotted bringing in headless fish and delivering the substantial body to

the female at the nest.

He must be catching the fish, then perching up close by and feeding on the nutritious brains before passing his bounty over to the female once she is ready for a swap over at the nest.

She takes the fish and flies off with it while he settles down into a spot of incubation duty.

Signs of a great team at work as we edge closer to the appearance of some new chicks.



Confirmed Egg in the nest!

The parents have been incubating since 7th April; they have built the nest up quite high and created a nice deep egg cup for the precious cargo. Great for osprey incubation but not so great for us osprey spies in the centre! We cannot see how many eggs have been laid but a keen volunteer could see at least one egg on view.

The parents are white leg ring male SS and the unringed female partner. They have been together at this nest site since 2004 and are superb parents. They don't waste time - on arrival back from migration they get straight down to the business of mating, and egg laying. Rangers from the commission very kindly renovate their nest site for them during their absence, so that when they do return, they find their nest in pristine condition, spring cleaned and ready to go. Little do they know how the storms and snow tear their summer home to pieces during the winter months!

Kailzie Gardens is the only Tweed Valley osprey centre open for now - Glentress will be opening shortly. Kailzie also has live cameras on 5 more nests, with herons, and blue tits in occupation already and the other three nest boxes with vacant signs over the entrance holes.

3 eggs confirmed

Just to let you all know that we now have three eggs, confirmed yesterday and probably laid yesterday morning as that was the first view of them.


All is looking good at the nest and both parents-to-be seem very settled. The male bird (SS) is doing plenty of incubating shifts and the female had a break for a couple of hours while he sat on the eggs. No fish have been brought back to the nest so we presume they are taking it in turns to go off and hunt and feed then return to the nest.

Overdue Eggs or Mistaken Identity?

We have been suffering a torturous wait here at the Osprey Watch centres for the appearance of our first eggs of the season. We have been getting lots of questions about why it is that the eggs are 'late', as they are usually laid 7-14days after first mating. However, the eggs have in the past been laid as late as the end of April, so we are not yet out of the realms of 'normal'- we are not panicking yet, just being impatient!

Firstly our nest has not been a quiet place this spring with an unusually high amount of intruder disturbance with others ospreys at the site. In particular last Saturday's violence may just have put off our female laying. This is unlikely but possible, especially since both our resident birds have been mating frequently and showing all the usual nesting behaviour such as nest 'renovation'.

The other even less likely possibility is that we have had a case of mistaken identity with the females and a changeover last Saturday.

Since 'our' female is unringed, we rely on recognising her distinctive head markings each year. Could it be that the female who arrived on the 1st April was coincidentally another unringed female with a similar marking? Could our male " white SS" have been courting another lady that first week, and when his 'real' lady turned up on the Saturday, she chased the interloper off? This would mean of course she has only been on 'her' nest for a week, accounting for the lack of eggs as yet.

The reason we are unsure is that the extreme violence of that encounter made identifying the females very difficult- in such a flurry of feathers , quite who was chasing who was unclear.

Could it be that there was a changeover amongst all that excitement? If the 'intruder' was in fact a resident bird coming home to find an interloper in her place, it would certainly account for the amazing violence and persistence she showed!

We will be reviewing the recorded footage over the next couple of days to see if we can unravel this mystery!