[dunk090]

Feeling extremely lucky (as a city boy) to have seen nesting Ospreys last weekend as fairly close quarters.

Making the most of the sunny weather we'd taken the kids out in the canoe on Loch Insh, launching from near the church where the Spey flows out from the loch (and thus avoiding the charge imposed by Loch Insh Watersports to launch from their beach ). We headed towards the main body of the loch, passing the island there on its quieter eastern side. Spotted a large construction at the top of one of the pines at the edge of the island, as we drew closer could see some movement in the nest. Closer still and we could see a pair of sizeable birds with their white feathers catching the sunlight. Must have been about 50m from the nest at this point, with the birds ignoring us despite No.1 daughter pointing and doing her usual "is that the bird?" at the top of her voice

There's only a certain amount of time before children run out of patience at being trapped in the canoe, so we carried on along the edge of the loch, passing Insh Views on the way as we stopped at a beach for lunch. A brief explore up the Spey after lunch, then we turned back and headed down the other side of the loch.

As we neared the island this time there was more actvity on the nest, and we were treated to the sight of one of the osprey taking to the air and flying past us (about 15m away) towards the centre of the loch. We watched as it flew away, then continued our paddling. Two minutes later and we heard it calling as it flew past us - carrying a fish this time . Although we'd missed seeing it actually catching its prey, it was still great to see this and to be able to explain to No.1 daughter that the bird had caught the fish for its tea!

As we carried the canoe up the bank back to the car, two minibus loads of twitchers on a guided bird-watching holiday arrived and all got very excited looking at the nest 250m away. I didn't have the heart to tell them what we'd just experienced!
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I hate nano's!

[HighlandNick]

One of the advantages of living in an area like Strathspey for over 20 years is that you get to find out where all the interesting birds are that visitors don't find out about.
I could tell you about the eagle nests, osprey sites and slovenian grebes are...but that would be telling!

I used to live on an estate that has some interesting flood terraces about 20 metres high. At the bottom of the terrace are some Caledonian pines about 20 metres high. So if you sit quietly on the top of the terrace, you can look right into the osprey nest at the same level!