Thanks for the update. Let's hope the chicks all fledge.
Good luck to the wife.
Ospreys
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Jacksparrow
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Re: Ospreys
Loch Arkaig - smallest chick has dies and still lying in the nest.
Poole Harbour - still four chicks. Fourth chick is much smaller that the other three. They have just been fed and the fourth chick didn't appear to get as much food as the others.
Poole Harbour - still four chicks. Fourth chick is much smaller that the other three. They have just been fed and the fourth chick didn't appear to get as much food as the others.
Re: Ospreys
One of the osprey nest that has been put up has been commandeered by a pair of Egyptian geese. Looks like they are nesting.
Re: Ospreys
Loch Arkaig - no chicks on the nest and I don't know why. Have been going back in the blog but haven;t found anything yet. Obviously something has happens but I haven't found out yet. Will keep going back on blog and try and find out what.
Re: Ospreys
Report from Loch Arkaig
Good evening everyone.
Having kept the situation under review again today it has been decided that the chicks will be removed from the nest tomorrow morning and handed on to the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation to be translocated to Spain.
The nest will likely be visited around 10am depending on how the weather turns out. The chicks will be given another good feed on the nest before being taken out of the tree.
I know you will have lots of questions about every last detail of this procedure but I don’t have much of that at the moment.
They will go to a specialised aviary in Inverness where they will be hand fed and looked after over the following days. Beak swabs will be taken to test them for avian flu and some other infections required before they embark overseas. Assuming all is well with that, they will be flown out to Spain on July 10th likely with ten other Scottish chicks.
This programme was already planned and in motion and it has been incredibly fortuitous that the timing fits with the emergence of our crisis on the nest at Arkaig.
We have had a number of tough decisions to take in the last week but actually this last one has been quite easy. There seems to be something wrong with Louis, possibly compounded by poor fishing conditions. The rate at which he has been fishing is just not enough to give the chicks a reasonable chance of survival. Even if they struggled through to the end of the summer it is felt very unlikely they would survive migration, which calls for considerable reserves of energy.
We are fairly certain at least one of the chicks would have died by now had there not been supplementary feeding on Friday and this morning.
When Louis was absent after Wednesday we wanted to at least wait to see if he would return before stepping in. Even though he returned on Saturday, there is something not right with him and we cannot have confidence he will return to form in time to stop the chicks from perishing. Before his disappearance he perched for most of Wednesday after bringing in one fish. Today he perched up for eight hours again after bringing one fish. The family needs more than that if it is to build up enough strength to survive migration.
The window of opportunity to enter the chicks in this translocation is brief and we did not want to be in the position of hanging on longer to see if the situation improved for our family. By removing them we hopefully take the pressure off the adults and allow them to replenish themselves in the coming weeks.
Continuing to feed them ourselves at Loch Arkaig is just not a feasible option. There are risks every time we go in. If the family is not viable on its own efforts its best the chicks get a chance in Spain.
Good evening everyone.
Having kept the situation under review again today it has been decided that the chicks will be removed from the nest tomorrow morning and handed on to the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation to be translocated to Spain.
The nest will likely be visited around 10am depending on how the weather turns out. The chicks will be given another good feed on the nest before being taken out of the tree.
I know you will have lots of questions about every last detail of this procedure but I don’t have much of that at the moment.
They will go to a specialised aviary in Inverness where they will be hand fed and looked after over the following days. Beak swabs will be taken to test them for avian flu and some other infections required before they embark overseas. Assuming all is well with that, they will be flown out to Spain on July 10th likely with ten other Scottish chicks.
This programme was already planned and in motion and it has been incredibly fortuitous that the timing fits with the emergence of our crisis on the nest at Arkaig.
We have had a number of tough decisions to take in the last week but actually this last one has been quite easy. There seems to be something wrong with Louis, possibly compounded by poor fishing conditions. The rate at which he has been fishing is just not enough to give the chicks a reasonable chance of survival. Even if they struggled through to the end of the summer it is felt very unlikely they would survive migration, which calls for considerable reserves of energy.
We are fairly certain at least one of the chicks would have died by now had there not been supplementary feeding on Friday and this morning.
When Louis was absent after Wednesday we wanted to at least wait to see if he would return before stepping in. Even though he returned on Saturday, there is something not right with him and we cannot have confidence he will return to form in time to stop the chicks from perishing. Before his disappearance he perched for most of Wednesday after bringing in one fish. Today he perched up for eight hours again after bringing one fish. The family needs more than that if it is to build up enough strength to survive migration.
The window of opportunity to enter the chicks in this translocation is brief and we did not want to be in the position of hanging on longer to see if the situation improved for our family. By removing them we hopefully take the pressure off the adults and allow them to replenish themselves in the coming weeks.
Continuing to feed them ourselves at Loch Arkaig is just not a feasible option. There are risks every time we go in. If the family is not viable on its own efforts its best the chicks get a chance in Spain.