This afternoon, when I checked, I saw that Beatrice had reached her River Adour stop-over in SW France, so I decided to go round the local ospreys this evening and found Nimrod flying over his eyrie; his mate saw me first and had flown up alarm calling, and in the distance I heard the youngster sqeaking. This chick will probably take until early September to depart so Nimrod will be around for a while yet – but it was good to see him before he heads off back to Africa. I found Morven’s nest empty but with careful searching I found their chick perched low in an oak tree on the woodland edge several hundred yards from the eyrie. There was no sign of Morven and it would not surprise me to find, when her transmitter next sends in data, that she has set off on migration. Down at Findhorn Bay the tide was out and after searching the mudflats with my scope I found one male osprey perched on an old log eating a fish, and then another male flew inland with a flounder over Culbin Forest, for quite a while he was mobbed by a young female sparrowhawk. But the weather was more like autumn than summer – windy, cold and grey. Various birds have been updated on the website and I’ve put up a page for the Bar-tailed Godwit I tagged with the Highland Ringing Group in the late winter.
August 18, 2009