Double delight at Strathspey eyrie!
Staff and visitors at Loch Garten are delighted – “and relieved!” - to say that there are now two chicks at the world-famous osprey nest in Strathspey.
Said visitor operations manager Jess Tomes: “After the first chick hatched in the early hours of Saturday morning (May 14) we were expecting the second to hatch no later than Tuesday.
“However, Tuesday came and went and we were beginning to fear the worst, wondering whether at 19 years of age, EJ only had one fertile egg in her, but then just after midnight on Thursday, our night-shift volunteers and dedicated online audience noticed the tell tale signs from EJ of an imminent hatching, and sure enough, chick number two appeared shortly after 1.15am.
“Because of the gap between the two chicks we suspect that this is actually the third egg which has hatched and that the second egg is infertile and therefore won’t hatch.”
Visitors to the Osprey Centre have been treated to views of both EJ and Odin feeding the chicks with tiny morsels of fish, and as the chicks grow, Odin will soon be kept extremely busy bringing in enough fish to feed his hungry family. When providing for his chicks the most fish he’s ever brought back in a day is nine.
EJ has managed to raise 23 chicks to fledging (when young ospreys leave the nest) so hopes are high that these two chicks will be the 24 and 25 chicks of EJ’s to leave the Loch Garten site on their migration in mid August. Incidentally, the first chick, which hatched on May 14 , is the earliest ever hatching at the nest since ospreys returned to breed here in the 1950’s. The previous record date was May 16. They’ve got a good start.
