Blog #20

Yesterday I went to Loch of the Lowes which is a Scottish Wildlife Trust  (SWT) reserve  to see a pair of Ospreys which have nested for 4 seasons. I didn’t just see Ospreys on their nest but was lucky enough to see lots of other wildlife around the reserve including blue tit, coal tit, great tit, treecreeper, chaffinch, yellowhammer, great spotted woodpecker, red squirrel, robin, mallard, pheasant, goldeneye, tufted duck, great crested grebe, mute swan and many other species of plant, tree, birds etc!

I arrived around 11:30am when I stepped out of the car I saw the very short path to the visitor centre which then led to another very short path where to Osprey hides were. I think this is a great place to see the Ospreys and other wildlife as it takes no more than 1 minute to get to the hide from the visitor centre!!! The centre also has a live osprey camera with a bird feeding station.

Once I’d left the visitor centre and walked into the hide I immediately saw the female osprey on the nest! Within 10 minutes the male arrived and they started mating. The SWT think there will be eggs within a week. Definitely worth a visit!

I then went to the other hide as the current hide was getting very busy. The other hide was about a 30 second walk away and was ideal for counting water birds like ducks and swans etc. Then unexpectedly the male Osprey flew right in front of the hide and I managed to get a quick shot through the hide window!

As it was a family day out we decided to have one last look in the visitor centre before heading off and leaving the Ospreys to do their business whilst we went to Loch Faskally.

The car park we parked in was looking on to a small loch called Loch Dunmore where we saw a couple of little grebes, a few tufted ducks and two mute swans which had a nest. After we scanned the loch for species we headed off onto the other path around Loch Faskally.

The walk near Loch Faskally took around 3 hours but well worth it as we saw some great tits, coal tits, blue tits, robins and other common corvid species in the woodland area but most interesting was probably the fungi species like hoof fungi and LOADS of Scarlet Elf Cup fungi in the one area on mossy logs! I recon there were about 35 separate cups of Fungi spread out in a small patch which is the most I have ever seen!

(click photos for a larger view)

After 3 long hours walking near the loch we eventually got back to the car and went for a meal before arriving back home to Glasgow at 9:30pm.