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Recent Events

April

During the first few days of April, BS continued to prepare the nest for his mate, but she, worryingly, did not appear. Then on the morning of April 5th, our female H/D returned. We hope BS was as pleased to see her as we were! Again we rang the bell so that the town knew she was back.

During this second week of April, we have watched our ospreys resuming their 'married' life. There has been much nest tidying, and fresh nesting material has been brought in regularly,especially by the male. Both birds have been bringing in fish, and the female has been off the nest more often than we observed last year. There have been several  mating attempts, though the strong winds in the middle of the week made this quite a difficult manoeuvre! However, we are hopeful that we may have eggs in about two weeks time. Our tree sparrows have also been busy, with evidence that they too are rebuilding their nest, birds with beakfuls of nesting material being seen on camera. An improvement in the weather would make life easier for our birds - high winds and hail storms do not make a good welcome!

Over the Easter period our ospreys continued to repair and line their nest, in between regular fishing trips. They have been mating frequently, so we should have eggs quite soon. Today, Wednesday, as if to celebrate the better weather, the male came in with two mullet, one in each foot! The tree sparrows are seen often; they seem to be building their nest underneath the bottom right corner of the ospreys' nest.

Well, it had been an eventful time with the first 2 (21st and 23rd) of hopefully 3 eggs now laid.  Both ospreys are doing their bit and sitting on the new eggs to keep them warm the male has been bringing in lots of fish.  This is one of the most exciting times to see what is going to happen and hoping there are no hitches.  If all goes well (cross your fingers!) we will have some chicks at the end of the month.

The tree sparrows seem to have now definitely set up home in the front right part of the nest so we are seeing them going in an out as well as the ospreys.  There must also be a starlings nest somewhere near as they pop up at the back left occasionally startling the dozing female.

Now we have three eggs! The third egg was laid on 26th April, the laying  process being watched by the warden, Elizabeth Tindal, and one of the caretakers for the County Building, Grace Crichton. At first they thought she'd got hiccups, until she stood up to reveal the third egg. So the bells rang out again, and we have the foundations for a successful season here in Galloway.