Three in the bed
The female osprey has done it again - laid another egg in the Glaslyn nest, bringing the total to three. Around half past one yesterday afternoon, we were all relaxing in a Sunday afternoon kind of way, when the female flattened herself out across the nest again. Well, we'd seen her do this move before and had a pretty good idea of what was coming, so a few of us ran over to the viewing hide, arms flailing, and rounded everyone up. All snugly gathered in the visitor centre around the nest-cam screen, it was about another 10 minutes before she got up. Unaware of the gathered masses, waiting for a first glimpse of the new arrival, she stood in between the camera and the eggs for a few frustrating minutes, before stepping back. The mossy bowl that the pair have built to protect their eggs is so deep within the nest that it was hard to see at first but by quickly switching the screen to another camera, we could look down into the nest and see all three of the perfect eggs - brilliant! All of the osprey's attention will be on protecting and incubating their little shell-encased family over the next four or five weeks. Hatching is expected to begin in the middle of May and they will hatch in the order that they were laid, a couple of days apart.
More peculiar behaviour came to light yesterday. When we switched the TV on in the visitor centre first thing in the morning, we could see a rough slate - about 3 inches square - in the bottom of the nest. The birds were fussing with it and moving it around so that it was beside them whilst they were sitting on the eggs, then spending quite a bit of time rubbing their beaks against it - most odd! However, we think there is a pretty sensible explanation for this. You see, the beaks and talons of birds of prey continue to grow, just like our fingernails do. And, like our fingernails, need a bit of maintenance to keep them from growing long and curling around. Basically, the birds seem to be filing their beaks and talons to keep them in tip-top shape - great eh?