Up here the weather has been overcast and wet, with easterly winds, which have brought in a lot of migrants to the islands and the east coast of Scotland from Scandinavia. Nimrod is still at his nest site, so may be his smallest chick is still waiting for good weather to migrate, and yesterday there were still two ospreys hunting in Findhorn Bay. Yesterday, Brian Etheridge told me about an osprey found in Wester Ross which was taken to the vet for care. It had been ringed in Sweden and it sounds like a bird blown off course across the North Sea by poor weather – fortunately it found Scotland.

Both female ospreys are staying put – Beatrice on a stop-over just north of Gibraltar, where she must have found a good place to catch fish – although she might be one of the unusual Scottish ospreys which do not migrate to West Africa but nowadays winter in Spain – we’ll see. Morven has also decided to rest (or again is it her wintering site) in the Mauritanian desert and fish the coastal waters. Sadly, no news from Glen’s transmitter, but the honey buzzard took advantage of a sunny day and flew from north of Manchester down to Coventry. All the eagles have been rather hunkered down in overcast rainy weather in the Cairngorms.