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Recent Events

June 1

Sunday June 1st was a quiet domestic day for our ospreys, with both H/D and EP taking turns to incubate their 3 eggs. These should hatch within the next 10 days, but with H/D going missing for 40hrs at the end of May, we are now waiting rather more anxiuosly than usual. Monday and Tuesday were also peaceful, with the lovely summery weather continuing.

Wednesday 4th saw our expectant parents quite unconcerned, going about their normal business: fishing, incubating, preening, nest tidying. We here in Wigtown however are getting more and more vigilant, watching for signs of imminent arrivals. June 7th is our 'official' date for hatching, so it could be any time from now on.

Thursday 5 th. When EP flew  in with a nice brown trout for H/D's breakfast, she obligingly got up to show us 3 unmarked eggs, no sign of hatching yet. By mid-day, H/D was fidgeting around, and kept looking underneath at the eggs - was something happening? In the day or so before hatching, chicks cheep from within the egg, and perhaps H/D could hear this. Despite our concentrated watching (or maybe because of it?), by the evening there was still no sign of any chicks emerging.
Friday 6th started with H/D turning the eggs, so we could see that nothing had hatched overnight. The day progressed peaceful, with no crow interference. At 2.30 we had another glimpse of 3 intact eggs, but H/D was very restless - did she know something we didn't? YES!! At 15.55 we had our first view of our first chick of 2008. Hurray!! The bells of Wigtown rang out to spread the news.

We watched it moving around, and it appeared fit and well, and nicely downy once it had dried off, with a nice dark eye stripe. We watched all evening, and saw it feed well just before 9.30pm. So both we and our ospreys could go for a good night's sleep.

Saturday 7th. After all the excitement of yesterday, today was more relaxed: H/D fed her chick whilst continuing to incubate the remaining eggs, and EP brought in enough fish. The chick was alert and active, holding its head up well and looking around.