Rothiemurchus made the dogleg again – instead of heading south for Madrid he turned west to his old haunts in Galicia – a
Along the North Coast of Spain – 448 km
result of his difficult first migration across the Bay of Biscay as a juvenile. At 0700GMT he was flying round the cliffs east of Urdabai estuary – a favourite osprey fishing site full of mullets and a place I know well. An hour later he passed over the inner estuary where my friend Aitor Galarza has installed artificial osprey nests to try to encourage ospreys to return to breed in the Basque country. He then flew fast along the north coast of Spain, inland from the coast, and by 2100GMT he has returned to a small river south of As Ponte de Garcia Rodriguez, where he has spent time before. At 1100hrs on 3rd September he was fishing on the Eume reservoir. I wonder how long he will stop-over.
