Jul 5th by Ian under Bird Watching
4 July, and from the picture here you can see the Ospreys are now well grown. I spent some time watching them, that is the female on the right, you need to open the picture, she has more brown across her chest, and this photo could have been the last as nothing happened. This is often the case, the male must be bringing in plenty to eat as the female was at the nest and you can see from the chicks size, could be left ( in my opinion anyway). I had good views of the female marsh harrier, several times, once about 5km away and one closer. She was perched on a tree when a crow flew over the nest area, immediately she was up and covered the nest shepherding the crow away, her chicks must be about ready for flight in the next week or so. I wonder if they were wing tagged and or radio tagged, with a bit of luck I might see the wing tags, it is surprisingly difficult to see a wing tag on a twisting and bobbing, in flight, harrier.
What else is surprisingly difficult is identifying some butterflies, the pictures here are ringlets, and it took me an hour with three books to reach that conclusion, the darker is the male. last week there were none of these, this week plenty. If I had got a good view of the underwing it would have been easier to identify from the internet and books. I can’t recall seeing these in Scotland before.
Another walk another lesson learned.