Ospreys in my Backyard

I’ve been photographing ospreys since 2013 and travelled all over Scotland to get my images. I’ve even seen them when in African and India.

So it came as a bit of a surprise when a friend asked me if I’d seen the osprey nest near my house.

I hadn’t been aware that there was a nest locally. Back in 2023 I had been at the local man-made lake on the estate photographing the swans when I heard that familiar cry from a osprey flying overhead.

I had hoped that they would nest on the tree in the lake which looks ideal for them but I found that they preferred a tree to the west of the lake in a narrow belt of trees between two fields on the edge of a hill.

I went over to the area in the evening and it wasn't difficult to find the nest as the adults were flying around the nest area and calling to each other. A suitable place was found to park the car and a vantage point for watching the nest. I managed to get some shots of them flying and landing on the nest.

A few days later I went back and this time noticed a small head poking above the huge nest, there was at least one chick. The adults flew around the nest area and often disappeared for twenty minutes or so before returning to the nest. I didn’t see them bring in any food for the chick despite heading off in several different directions. The weather was dull and overcast so that may have had some influence on what was available.

On my subsequent return I notice that the nest was empty or at least I couldn’t see any activity. A few minutes later an adult and the already fledged chick arrived at the nest. The chick and both adults spent some time  flying around the area and landing on various vantage points and returning to the nest. Having managed a few aerial shots and landing and take offs I packed up for the evening as the light was starting to fade.

When processing the images I noticed that the male had a ring and blue tag. I initially read it as PO9 but subsequently discovered that it was PU9.

I sent the image to Ewan who rings the eagles and asked him to pass the image to one of his contacts. Ian from the NE Scotland Raptor Study Group confirmed that PU9 was one of two chicks ringed in Perthshire in July 2020 and hadn’t been seen since then so this conformation had been a useful update.