An osprey which reached global fame during the 2020 lockdown has laid her first egg of the season in Perthshire.
Dorcha was reunited with mate Louis at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve in Perthshire this month.
Louis touched down on their nest on April 2, with his return captured on a livestream camera, and Dorcha joined him soon afterwards.
The arrival of the male osprey was ahead of schedule as April 4 was previously his earliest arrival on record.
Viewers of the livestream around the world watched as she laid her first egg on Friday at 5.45am.
Dorcha is expected to produce a second egg by Monday, with a third likely to come in the middle of next week.
READ MORE: Lockdown star Louis the osprey returns to his nest
Chicks are expected to emerge in the nest by the end of May.
Woodland Trust Scotland has been operating a live nest camera following the ospreys at Loch Arkaig Pine Forest since 2017, with support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
The livestream became a hit during the first Covid-19 lockdown, clocking up 400,000 views worldwide in 2020.
Laura Chow, head of charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: “We are delighted that thanks to support from our players, viewers anywhere can share in the wonderful story of the osprey family at Loch Arkaig.
“We’re excited to see precious new life has arrived with an egg in the nest.”
The Loch Arkaig livestream can be viewed on the Woodland Trust website, at https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/osprey-cam.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel