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Recent Events

BA Flying Soon

As we find ourselves now in the fourth week of July, time is getting on for the Ospreys are back in Galloway nest. Our Osprey chick Blue BA is 48 days old today and edging ever closer to our projected fledging early next week.

BA has continued to grow enormously and as you can see from our latest nest photos, is approaching full size. In fact it would seem that our male EP is now the smallest member of the family - perhaps this explains why he doesn’t want to spend much time on the nest these days?

As I mentioned last week, we had projected BA’s first flight to be around the 28th July, next Tuesday. We are still confident of BA making this date but she still has a little growing to do. This past week she has been putting a lot of time into working up wing muscles, flapping with more control than last week and hopping up and down on the spot. Her flight feathers on the wings appear to be almost complete, albeit displaying the typical pale fringes of a juvenile bird, but she lacks the complete tail of an adult with a few bare quills still showing. We’ve seen the level of physical change that can happen in a short space of time though, so another five days could have BA raring to go. Historically our chicks from the Ospreys are back in Galloway nest have fledged at an average of 52 days old, so here’s hoping for sunny weather early next week.

Once she has mastered the power of flight we look forward to seeing BA bringing home her first fish. For now she is still being supplied with fish by Dad EP and fed by Mum H/D but there are signs that she is catching on how to deal with them without parental help. H/D left the tail end of a Mullet in the nest this lunchtime and after a few tentative pecks BA clamped it down with her talons and gave it a good tear.

All signs pointing to good progress, and hopefully next time I write we will have seen BA take to the skies.