This week has been very busy with migration in full swing, the female Osprey, Morven has already travelled over parts of the Sahara Desert to reach northern Mauritania, while Nimrod is still feeding his young at home in Scotland. His daily journeys are really revealing and it’s the first time I’ve had a very accurate satellite transmitter on a male Osprey. He’s been fishing in Findhorn Bay and along the Culbin Bars on the open coast, and roosting at night in Culbin Forest well away from his nest. One particularly miserable day on the coast he switched hunting grounds to a trout fishery further inland. His tracks show clearly his return trips to his nest to give fish to his young. I visited the nest on Tuesday and saw one chick, probably the youngest, preening its feathers on the nest and waiting for the next meal. They should be away soon and then Nimrod can make plans for his own migration back to Africa. It’s going to be very interesting to watch. He’s been in Scotland since 1st April and, with a late started family, his first, and the successful rearing of three young, he’s been here for four and a half months. One day I went to the RAF Kinloss to speak with the station press officer, Dawn McNiven, as the base is interested in becoming involved with the project. The ospreys fish in Findhorn Bay and are so used to Nimrod aircraft passing over them, when the planes land at the base, that they don’t even look up when the huge aircraft are only a couple of hundred feet above them. Nimrod’s page should be up and running in a few days.

It’s been very wet and grey over most of the British Isles, the golden eagle chicks in the Cairngorms have been moving about their parents’ home ranges, but sometimes there have been gaps in GPS transmissions because of the lack of sunlight reaching the solar panels. I was told yesterday that the same was true with a Golden Eagle being tracked in Ireland, so I am hoping that this may be the reason that I haven’t received any recent signals from Glen, who was last located in Co Roscommon. Several people over there interested in raptors tried to see Glen, and Micheal Casey located his actual last roosting site but did not see him (his account is on Glen’s page). I hope I hear again soon or else I’m worried that he kept on flying and disappeared out it in the Atlantic Ocean. If so, then it’s very sad news, and another reminder that it’s a very difficult migration for young ospreys from Scotland to Africa. These two chicks started off with a disadvantage, because their mother, Logie, was so delayed in spring, so they were late in maturing, their mother set off early and possibly their father, after a very long summer, was not bringing in as much food as they needed, and they set off too early and in bad weather. But with wild birds you never know – suddenly they turn up again and confound your theories. Fortunately, the two young ospreys, Deshar and Nethy, from Loch Garten have survived the bad weather and are still in southern England.