Our female osprey returned on the 2nd of April and a new male arrived the next day on the 3rd and joined her at the nest. It is a different bird and not AW, her mate of the last 3 years. We have live CCTV images from the nest on the webcam on the WWT website from 10am to 5pm daily then it reverts to badger cam for the evening. Check out the Caerlaverock osprey Diary for all the latest news.
Ospreys back at Caerlaverock
Caerlaverock Osprey Diary 2012
Hello and welcome to the 2012 Caerlaverock Osprey Diary. Still no sign of our birds back at the nest. Our CCTV camera is now up and running and is live on the WWT website from 10am to 5pm. Hopefully longer when there are more sunlight hours to charge the solar powered batteries. last year our female arrived back on the 29th of March and our male AW on the 6th of April, a day after an intruder male tried to take his place on the nest! Our boy drove him off and took his rightful place, maybe he won’t leave it as late this year.
There are ospreys about all over the country, with the Loch garten female back last week and at least 2 birds at Loch of the Lowes but no sign yet of Lady.
Eyes to the skies and hopefully good news soon.
Cheers
Brian
Caerlaverock prepares for return of breeding ospreys
As the geese and swans head north to Spitsbergen and Iceland for the summer, our ospreys are due back from a winter in Africa and hopefully they will breed again successfully this year.
We will have live images from the nest beamed to the big screen in the visitor centre so why not drop in for a cup of tea and a scone to watch some proper ‘Reality TV’?!
You can follow the Caerlaverock Osprey Diary here.
Meanwhile, our ever popular badger watching evenings run from April 4 for two weeks. Places are limited and filling up fast so please phone 01387 770200 to book your place.
For a full list of our special events check out the Caerlaverock events page.
Ospreys back at Caerlaverock
The ospreys have made a welcome return to Caerlaverock over the Easter weekend.
On Saturday (3 April), Reserve Manager Richard Hesketh saw an osprey land on the nest via the live CCTV link at Caerlaverock. The bird had a green ring on the left leg but although Richard was unable to read the letters on it but we felt sure it had to be our male bird AW.
He immediately started to re-arrange the nest ready for the return of his mate. Just in time because early on Sunday morning an unringed osprey flew onto the nest, and we could see from the unique facial markings that it was our female bird from last year. Then later the male flew in to join her on the nest and this time we could read his leg ring confirming that he is indeed our male bird AW. They each flew the 3,000 miles from West Africa independently and are probably only meeting up for the first time since they left Caerlaverock last September.
This pair bred successfully last year raising one chick to fledge, the first for Dumfriesshire since records began. Hopefully they will raise another brood this year. Our new CCTV system beams live pictures and sound to the Caerlaverock Wetland Centre visitor building so we can see and hear the birds at the nest.
You can follow the Caerlaverock Osprey Diary on our website here
Caerlaverock is open to visitors every day from 10am to 5pm.
