Yesterday was the most appalling day of rain; it started overnight and just kept just bucketing down all day. By evening the small river across from my house was a raging torrent and as I looked out into the gloom before going to my warm bed, I just could not help but think of the female ospreys on their tree top nests trying to keep their young ones warm and alive. I was sure they would have been absolutely soaked and they would need to be really good mothers to keep the chicks sheltered. And the males would find it really difficult to find fish in the flooded waters. This morning the rain was still pouring down and everywhere was flooded. At least I knew from the weather forecast that it was due to stop at midday, but the female ospreys didn’t and they just had to sit there crouched over the young, open to the elements.

At midday it did stop, within an hour there was a nice breeze, and soon the sun came out. Late afternoon I decided I would go round and monitor the nests in the closest part of Moray to my house. At the first nest, B01 – what I still call Logie’s old nest, the male was perched in the sunshine on his favourite dead Scots pine and his mate was carefully feeding her young in the top of the larch tree. Already their feathers were dry and he had obviously just brought in a fish. The young at this nest are under a week old so I could see her putting tiny bits of fish down into the nest but I did not see her chicks. At the next site, the female was stretching her wings above the nest, quickly brought a small stick back and added it to her big eyrie and then shuffled back to keep her brood warm. Next stop it was domestic bliss in the tall tree by a barley field; female feeding young and her mate perched on the side of the nest – he again must have just brought home a fish. It was beautiful watching them through my telescope against the evening sun.

I next checked on Morven, an old well-known female. She was the last one to lay eggs in this area and when I scoped her nest from my car I could not see anything. But then just the white top of her head poked above the edge of the nest. She was sitting very tight incubating eggs and keeping very low down in her nest. At the next site, the earliest breeder in this area, the chicks must have been recently fed for they were lying quiet in the nest while their mother stood on the edge preening her feathers. My final visit was to the eyrie used for many years by Beatrice; the new female there was sitting high in the nest and she was brooding very small young. Six pairs of ospreys and all had come through the appalling weather safely. These female ospreys really have to put up with some bad weather and I’m always impressed by how well they protect their young from very heavy rain – I’m told we had 2 inches in 24 hours!  But what I do know is that if heavy rain continues for more than two days and nights, young ospreys do die in their nests. Thankfully not this time.

Last month I spent a few days in the Basque country to see how the Osprey reintroduction project was progressing with my colleague there, Aitor Galarza. So far this year they have recorded six translocated ospreys returning from Africa to the estuaries on the Bay of Biscay – all of them males. In April, the male which has been guarding a nest in Urdaibai reserve, exactly where the young Scottish ospreys were released, attracted a female Osprey to stop. All looked good, she was on the nest for some days and blue N1 was excellent at providing fish, but after feeding up she left him and flew on north. A big disappointment but we have seen this happen before in other projects, such as the translocation of Scottish ospreys to Rutland Water in the late 90’s. It’s always a question of patience and suddenly a female will decide to stay and the recolonisation of lost breeding areas begins. The first female to breed at Rutland Water was not one that we translocated, but one that was persuaded to stop off on her journey north by displaying males with nests.

Tim Mackrill was one of those who saw these things happen. He started at Rutland Water as a volunteer when he was at school; then went on to do a degree at the University of East Anglia and subsequently join the staff at Rutland Water Nature Reserve. By this time I knew him as “young Tim” as opposed to my great friend Tim Appleton the founder and manager of Rutland Water Nature Reserve – who to me was “old Tim” – I should have said “older Tim”. We got to know Tim better when he came north to research a dissertation on the fishing strategies of ospreys in the Highlands for his university degree. More recently, I was delighted that he researched the mass of satellite tracking data that we had built up on ospreys migrating from UK to West Africa – including the very first use of satellite transmitters in 1999 and our ground-breaking use of GPS and GSM transmitters with Google Earth mapping and immediate display on our websites. This resulted in Tim gaining his Ph.D. at University of Leicester. I was then very excited that he asked to join my foundation to help us carry out exciting projects on birds and mammals. It’s a new beginning for us and I am so happy that the future looks bright as I get older – we have changed our name to the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation to reflect our broader reach and it would be great if you would like to help us continue with our bold and proactive projects. Click here to find out how you can help.

Over last weekend, I got good news from North Spain. When Brian Etheridge and I were there in May, Aitor showed us some estuaries further to the west where two males were located. We met Carlos, a local birder, at an estuary holding a single male and encouraged him to get his man-made nest up quickly. Within days we learnt that the male took it over, started adding nest material and then attracted a potential mate – an unringed female – his photo to right. Let’s hope she likes the plentiful mullet and this male, and that next spring she will return – it’s too late to breed this year. Another step in the project started by Aitor and his colleagues to restore ospreys to North Spain. We are proud to be partners.