Osprey's Return

Ospreys spend their winters in West Africa, the males returning first, arriving in late March to early April to establish their territories and start rebuilding their nest, so when we walked along the shore of Loch Fleet this morning we thought we'd be pretty lucky to see one but our luck was in as we found a bird on the nest we located last summer. As always, even though we were a good distance away from him, he was very wary and we only had a couple of minutes to watch him before....

....he decided he didn't like the look of us so....

took off and flew away.

The female will, hopefully, join him shortly and their first eggs should be laid before the month is out.

This morning's walk was a good one as we also managed to creep up on a recently-arrived chiffchaff who was singing, rather inexpertly, in the upper branches of a tree, getting close enough to take a photograph. He has also returned from wintering in Africa.