Osprey at Perthshire wildlife reserve lays her first egg of the season

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The first osprey egg of the season has been laid at a Perthshire wildlife reserve.Female osprey NC0 laid the mottled egg - which is around the size of a duck’s egg - at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve at 10.48am on Wednesday.It appeared after a six-minute labour during a lull in the strong winds that the ospreys have had to endure in recent days.Female ospreys typically lay between two and three eggs in a season, so further eggs are expected in the coming days.NC0 will stay on the nest to incubate her eggs for around five to six weeks before they hatch.The Trust’s Perthshire Ranger, Sara Rasmussen, said: “We are delighted that NC0 has laid her first egg of the season despite the strong winds that have been battering the nest of late.“This is a crucial point in the season when an osprey pair must work as a team.

If the eggs are left uncovered they can cool quickly, reducing the chances of successful hatching. Fortunately, we’ve seen this pair successful raise seven chicks together in the last four years so they have already demonstrated that they can do that.”During the incubation period, a female osprey will incubate the eggs for around 80 per cent of the time, with the male taking over for brief periods while the female feeds on the fish that he brings to the nest.We told you at the start of the month how the couple had reunited at the Perthshire reserve.Female NC0 and male LM12, mates for the past four years, have fledged seven chicks during that time.When NC0 arrived back on March 8 there was concern that LM12, since he is aged between 13 and 14, might not return to Scotland after wintering thousands of miles away in either Iberia or West Africa.