Towards evening, at 7 pm, osprey Madis’s new fiancée Oxana laid the first egg; rather, she is really hardly a fiancée any longer. Around May 1st such things have usually happened in the nests of our ospreys.

 

Seen from afar the egg seems to be covered with fragments of the nest materials. The  eggs of ospreys are cream-coloured, with purple spots. On a day with better light conditions the colours will show up nicely.

 

...

 

 

 Male osprey Madis, as nest-owner the possessor of real estate, has success among the ladies (no need to start with boring construction work). Last year’s girlfriends are forgotten and also Piret with whom he nested successfully last year. Things seem to work out with the new girlfriend; she has been named Oxana by the forum people. There have been conflicts between the females, and even today the calls of a third osprey was heard from further away.

 

A very soap-operaish atmosphere!

 

 ...

 

 

Male osprey Madis has a new girlfriend. How to distinguish between them to make some sense of what is happening? Male ospreys are smaller, weighing around a kilo and a half, the considerably sturdier females weigh around two kilos. The wing span of our smallest eagle is about one and a half metres.

 

The image in flight reminds somewhat of a large gull, and sometimes they are in fact confused.