Alice is off today, recovering from her wasp incident, (don't worry, she's fine), so you've got me. I've just checked the data and Mallachie is still in the same area of Portugal near the border with Spain. It will be interesting to see how long she stays there now, given her steady progress up to the point of arriving there. Maybe it's her turn to bide a while in one place and replenish her resources.
It is an interesting comparison between their respective strategies. Rothes left Loch Garten very earlier remember, and was off like a bolting rabbit and then appeared to have hit a wall near Bordeaux, where she spent several weeks before eventually moving on. Did she leave too early, regret it and then run out of puff? Mallachie on the other hand, left on time, well, when we expected her to, made steady progress reaching further south than Rothes but has now come to a stand-still herself. Hares & tortoises spring to mind.
Rothes though presses on further. Her most up to date fix at 10pm last night (30th) gave her position as just south of Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, near the Atlantic coast. Having come inland from a spell out at sea off Morocco (phew!), at 11am on 29th September was close to the border between Western Sahara and Mauritania. At noon she was near a town called Zouerate where she seem to spend a few hours before continuing on her way due south west. At 4pm she crossed the very bottom right hand corner of Western Sahara near a town called Choum before proceeding back into Mauritania and finding a roosting spot. The next day, (30th) she was on the move by 10am, presumably once the heat of the desert day was up, to give her lift, and she seem to be following the N1 road towards Akjoujt. By 5pm she was east of the capital and went to roost at about 7pm just south of Nouakchott, within sight of the sea, handy for fishing. It's always good and reassurring to see them somewhere close to water. My guess is that Rothes will drop further down south now and pitch up at Djoudj National Park on the border with Senegal, that I mentioned last year for Nethy. We shall see, more tomorrow.
Meantime here on the Rez, it's a beautiful time of year. As the temperatures begin to drop, the autumn colours are beginning to show. There was even a fresh dusting of snow on the high Cairngorms this morning. It's a great time to visit, if you are in reach. The Osprey Centre and facilities are closed, but the wider reserve area is open at all times. In fact, it's a great time to visit Strathspey in general, there's just so much autumn going on right now.
Yesterday, I went out in the late afternoon sunshine to try and see hen harriers going to roost. Once in position, I sat back in the heather to wait. Eighteen whooper swans passed overhead, fresh from Iceland - that's our north Atlantic neighbours you understand, not the supermarket - flying against the darkening leaden sky, yet somehow spot-lit by the last rays of evening sunshine, they looked magnificent. They were heading to Loch Garten to roost I think. Skeins of pink-footed geese (also from Iceland) passed overhead too, but way, way up high, picked up on call, determindly heading further south. But flocks of greylags were to-ing and fro-ing, back and forth all over the Strath, as the dusk descended, undecided whether to roost on Lochs Garten, Mallachie or Pityoulish. Add to all that, the distant horny bellowing of red deer stags resounding in the hills behind me, and the sense of autumn was complete. No harriers though, bah. Still, cannot have everything.
More anon.