We’ve all been worried today because we thought there were only two eggs in the Manton Bay nest and we didn’t know what had happened to the third. The female must have read my recent post because as soon as I put it on the website, she stood up and revealed three eggs! What a relief!
A cause for concern?
If you’ve had a look at the videos in the previous post you may have noticed that the third egg in the Manton Bay nest was difficult to see. It appeared to be lower down in the nest cup than the other two eggs. Whenever the pair have left the eggs uncovered today we’ve only been able to see two, as you can see in the video below. We’re not really sure what’s happened but we’ll keep an eye on the camera and post a full update tomorrow.
A clumsy fisherman and a couple of visitors…
A sunny Bank Holiday Sunday has brought many people to the reserve and the nest in Manton Bay has kept us all entertained. A bit of sunshine has obviously made it look more attractive than usual and it has played host to a couple of visitors…
5R’s mate seems to have enjoyed a day off from the wet and windy weather as she’s been having regular breaks to have a stretch and a preen.
In between stretching and preening, the female has been doing plenty of food begging. By the afternoon the breeze had died down and 5R eventually decided it was time to go fishing. He managed to catch a roach in front of Waderscrape hide and took it to a nearby perch. After eating part of the fish 5R took the remainder to the nest and what followed proved to be a fairly clumsy changeover. It’s a good job that he’ll only have to carry out incubation duties for another two weeks and then he’ll be able to concentrate on doing what he does best.
Exciting news from Spain!
So far eleven of the young Ospreys who have fledged from nests in the Rutland Water area since 2001, have made it back. We now know that a twelfth is on his way home too.
This morning Roy Dennis received an email from Adolfo Villaverde. He monitors the Villaviciosa estuary in northern Spain and often sees Ospreys passing through in spring and autumn. One of Roy’s satellite-tagged Ospreys, Morven, regularly stops off at the estuary on her annual migrations between Scotland and the Atlantic coast of Mauritania. Morven is now back in Scotland, but yesterday Adolfo identified another colour-ringed Osprey. Excitingly, it turned out to be one from Rutland Water.
11(10) was one of two chicks to fledge from the Site N nest in 2010 and left Rutland Water in late August that year. We don’t know where he wintered, but thanks to Adolfo’s sighting, we now know that he was at Villaviciosa yesterday. The estuary is a superb place for Ospreys to stop-off during migration, with plenty of grey mullet and flatfish for 11 to feed on.
It will be really interesting to see how long he stays there for. Two year-old Ospreys often don’t return to the UK until June or July, and so 11 may spend several weeks at the estuary before heading north. When he resumes his migration 11 will have a long flight over the Bay of Biscay to contend with – it is 300 miles to the Brittany coast – but stopping-off at the estuary does at least mean he will be in good condition for the flight. Let’s just hope he chooses to make the crossing in good conditions – and not when there are strong easterly winds that may blow him out into the Atlantic.
Adolfo reports that 11 was still there this morning and has said he’ll keep an eye on him while he is at Villaviciosa. We’ll be sure to keep you updated.
Very many thanks to Adolfo for this great news.
Spring clean
Today has seen a slight improvement in the weather at Manton Bay, so 5R has decided to start extending the nest in anticipation of the arrival of chicks in a few weeks time. The female did not seem too happy about 5R’s work and decided she would try to sort things out for herself. As the video below shows though, this proved beyond her and in the end she left the offending stick for 5R to sort out!
Almost Tea Time
Just as we were all starting to think about what we might have for our dinner, 5R flew past the front of the Lyndon Visitor Centre this afternoon carrying a large Trout.
As soon as he arrived back in Manton Bay the female in the nest started food begging. 5R has taken his catch to the nearby perch and is precariously balancing the Trout on there, fingers crossed he will manage to keep hold of it and take her some soon.
We have had the second delivery of Ozzie’s Migration, a book which tells the story of one Osprey’s migration from Rutland Water to The Gambia, written by Ken Davies and illustrated by John Wright.
The book has already been used as a tool for teaching children about the migration in schools in Rutland and The Gambia. You can pick up a copy for £5 at Lyndon or Egleton.
Careful of those eggs!
It’s been a much warmer day today, and we’ve even had the occasional bit of sunshine. 5R has just arrived at the nest with a trout and taken over incubation.
Earlier on, the young three year-old female 00(09), made a brief appearance at the nest. 5R, who was incubating at the time, went into defensive mode, mantling over the three eggs. It is just the type of intrusion that can lead to eggs being smashed, and as you can see in the video, it almost happened as 5R clumsily fell across the eggs, knocking into two of them in the process. Fortunately he didn’t do any damage and his mate took over incubation to allow 5R to chase the intruding female away.
The story so far…
It’s hard to believe that 5R has been back in Rutland for 44 days now and after all the drama with 5N and 00(09) at the beginning of the season the resident pair have been incubating their full clutch for 12 days. The video below shows what has happened in Manton Bay so far this season. Rutland Water is very lucky to be getting a newly refurbished Rutland Water Visitor Centre (formally the Tourist Information Centre) at Sykes Lane near Empingham and this video will be shown on their big screen. All the more reason to pop down and spend a day at Rutland Water!
Enough is enough!
Well it’s been another dreary day in Manton Bay.
5R bought a big Trout back to the bay first thing this morning and after eating for about an hour he unfortunately dropped it on his way to the nest. He was soon sent off again to find the unringed female a meal and spent nearly 15 minutes unsuccessfully fishing underneath the nest pole.
The Manton Bay female is no longer impressed with this awful weather and this morning she looked pretty fed up. Come on 5R, bring her something to eat!
What a difference a day makes
After the horrendous wind and rain of yesterday, the reserve has been basking in glorious spring sunshine for much of today. It has probably been even more of a relief for the Manton Bay Ospreys than it was for us.
The sun may have been out, but a brisk north-easterly wind has continued to make fishing difficult for 5R today. He finally arrived back at the nest with a small Roach at about 4pm. As usual he ate part of the fish before taking the rest to the nest. There wasn’t much left though and the female polished it off within fifteen minutes. Clearly not satisfied by her meal she flew back to the nest and began food-begging again. When 5R didn’t respond she simply pushed him off the nest – thereby forcing him to go off in search of another meal. Now that told him!
