Female osprey makes camp with Laddie in Africa return
● Youngster is the new kid in town – but rival Lassie is expected to return
A new female osprey that hatched from a nest at Loch Ness has touched down at a nature reserve in Perthshire after spending winter in Africa.
She was first spotted on Saturday at Loch of the Lowes reserve, which had already welcomed the return of its regular resident male osprey just over a week ago.
Osprey LM12, known locally as Laddie, has been the breeding male at the site for the past eight years.
Since 2015 he has been joined by the female LF15, or Lassie, and the pair have successfully fledged a total of ten chicks together.
Staff at the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), which owns the reserve, have been eagerly awaiting Lassie’s arrival over the past few days, but she has not yet been seen.
But for now this new bird is attracting Laddie’s attention.
The young female, dubbed NC0, was ringed as a fledgeling in the Highlands in 2016.
But this is likely to be only the first or second time she has made the 5,000-mile flight back to Scotland.
Staff at SWT say NC0 has been spending an increasing amount of time on the nest over the past day or so and LM12 has made several attempts to breed with her.
SWT’S Perthshire ranger Sara Rasmussen said: “LM12 and NC0 are still fairly unsure of each other.
“He has shown some defensive signs, but there have also been attempts at mating.
“Birds can take time to build a relationship, and so far they aren’t sharing fish in the same way that established pairs do.
“There is still some chance that LF15 will return this week.
“If she does, it will be very exciting to see what plays out and whether she is able to reclaim her nest from NC0.”
There was further drama on Sunday afternoon when another osprey, thought to be a male, was caught on camera dive-bombing the nest at speed.
“This is a fantastic reminder that there are lots more ospreys around and they are jostling to find nests where they can breed,” Ms Rasmussen added.
“At some points in previous years we’ve seen upwards of half a dozen birds over the nest at Lowes in a single day.”
LM12’S previous mate was the legendary female called Lady, who returned to Loch of the Lowes for 24 years in a row.
She was considered a wildlife phenomenon, having produced a record-breaking 71 eggs and fledging 50 chicks in her lifetime.
Ospreys were extinct in the UK for much of the 20th century.
They began to recover in the 1960s and now an estimated 300 pairs of ospreys breed at the location each summer.
Ospreys migrate to West Africa during winter, flying up to 270 miles a day. SWT’S osprey webcam allows nature-lovers across the globe to follow events as they happen.