Visited Nimrod’s nest site at 11am and at last caught him ‘at home’. He was perched on the top most branch and nearby was his mate standing in the nest, squeaking at him to go and bring back a fish. It all looked settled and soon they should be incubating eggs – the nest is certainly ready – thanks in many ways to the amount of nest building put in by the new male ‘yellow HA’, who tried to take over the nest. He’s been ousted by Nimrod and I wonder where he’s gone – has he started to build a new nest?, has he found a mate?, will he breed this summer?. Three year old ospreys looking for mates and nests will still be arriving – so there’s still hope. I took this photograph of yellow HA on the salt marsh at Findhorn Bay in late summer 2007.

There was probably a fight between females at another of the nests in Moray because I had a good look at the bird at the nest yesterday, and she was unringed, whereas the regular female is colour ringed – and I was sure she had arrived at the nest earlier. About half the pairs are now on eggs but a few nests only had singles – this year there have been slow arrivals.

Alma and Tom, the immature golden eagles have had a settled few weeks at opposite ends of the Cairngorms, and the two young sea eagles, we are satellite tracking, are both settled on Mull, following Breagha trip to Rum, Canna and Skye and back.

Check out the woodcock page – it is a really exciting look at the spring migration of two woodcock from the island of Islay – they are beautiful and enigmatic waders, and it’s very interesting to learn more about them. One male has been roding at dusk over my garden, here in Moray, for the last week or so – I wonder where he winters – probably Ireland.