Haggis Highway: Home to Roost - Osprey EarthCache
Haggis Highway: Home to Roost - Osprey
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This Earthcache not only gives you a fabulous view of Loch Balgavies but also puts you in prime position to view the Ospreys who nest on the island directly in front of you!
Loch Balgavies is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for a whole variety of reasons. Firstly - and most importantly for the purposes of an Earthcache - it is a perfect example of a Kettle Hole Loch. The definition of a Kettle Hole is a hollow created when buried blocks of glacier ice melt out. The name derives from an old meaning of 'kettle', as in a deep iron basin for heating water over a fire. A 'kettle drum' has a similar derivation.
A kettle hole is formed by blocks of ice that are separated from the main glacier - perhaps the ice front stagnated or retreated or perhaps ice blocks were washed out from the glacier during a glacier flood. If conditions are right, the isolated blocks of ice then become partially or wholly buried in outwash. When the ice blocks eventually melt they leave behind holes or depressions that fill with water to become kettle hole lakes. In Scotland, they may be preserved as isolated small lochs such as Balgavies.
It would be lovely if you would take a photograph of yourself at the viewpoint and upload it along with your cache log.
In order to claim this cache please Observe, Describe and Explain what signs there are that this a Kettle Hole lake. For example - there is an abandoned railway along the north side of the loch - what issues would the railway engineers have to have overcome to build the railway there?
In 2012 the resident Osprey pair had the first chick born at Balgavies. The team here managed to tag the chick with a GPS chip. They followed the chick to its winter residency in the Seychelles. The bird took 18 days to get there and is expected back at Balgavies at the end of March - so look out for it!
Have a look at this video where the two adult Osprey's try to temp their chick out of the nest with fish. The adults then wash after eating by diving into the water, One also collects more sticks for the nest.
With grateful thanks to the Scottish Wildlife Trust for their permission to place this cache and the others in the Balgavies Loch area.
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