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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Glaslyn osprey diary

 

Sitting, waiting, incubating

The male has been taking it easy to an extent over the last few days and has not been fishing very much - both their energy needs are very small right now. The female's day is mostly taken up with sitting on the nest perforimg her role as a living egg-cosy. On the occasions when she does feel peckish and her mate brings back a fish, she will take it off to a nearby feeding tree (the male will take over the egg-sitting duties whilst she's away) pick at it awhile, have a little fly around to stretch her wings, and maybe do a little poo, then back to the nest to resume sitting.

It's not a strenuous life really. Similarly, the male isn't too hungry himself either, as he spends lots of time lounging around the place. Of course, all that is bound to change when the eggs hatch and they have three hungry chicks to feed, so they should try and make the most of their leisure time whilst they still can.

The male is bringing back plenty of sticks, moss and clods of earth to build up the nest with. They will add to the nest in this way throughout the season, as they did last year. In this warm weather, the clods dry out quite quickly and must get scratchy and uncomfortable, so to combat that, the female tears at and teases them to break the earth down into softer, powdery material.

Naturally, when visitors come along to the viewing site to see the birds for themselves, they want to know which is the male and which is the female. Once you know how to tell them apart, there really is no way of getting them mixed up, as they have quite pronounced differences. For one thing, she is visibly bigger - that is to say, a couple of inches longer and much broader - she makes him look quite slight by comparison. Also, female ospreys have a kind of speckly brown necklace around their breast, whilst males are much whiter.

In the Glaslyn pair, this is particularly clear, the female's necklace is really deeply dark and chocolatey, whilst the male's breast is washing powder white - he fairly gleams like a beacon when he is facing the camera head on.

Published 18 April 2007 13:47 by Wendy Johnson

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