What fantastic news to come back to after the weekend, that Nethy has successfully reached the African continent. David was watching the data over the weekend and found her to be in Morocco, as he reported, and in fact as of 8am this morning (6th) that's where she still is/was. David will take a look for new data later this evening and let you know any developments.
Nethy is well advised to be in warmer climes, as up here at Loch Garten it is full-on autumn now. It was white-over with frost this morning and really quite cold, conditions that will send fish deeper and harder to catch, hence the departure of ospreys. I was at the Osprey Centre yesterday to fill up the feeders for the red squirrel-cam, which maybe you're watching too, and it was a somewhat eerie atmosphere - Centre closed, David, Keeley and the Claires now gone, the paths and roads covered in yellow pine needles from recent windy weather - all very end of season. And yet with the tracking project the osprey season still goes on. Since the tracking went live in mid-July, approximately 35,000 people have visited the site - that's as many again as visited the Centre this past summer, such is the following they have generated.
After her long stop-over in Gloucestershire, her eventual departure south from UK coincided with the arrival here at Loch Garten of winter migrants from further north. Yesterday the loch was glassy calm, with perfect reflections of the birches in their autumn colours, spoilt only by the arrival of greylag geese from Iceland whifflling in to roost on the water along with loafing goosanders. The absolute silence was broken only by the whistles of wigeon and the horny bellowings of rutting red deer stags on the hills beyond, all very magical.
Richard Thaxton - site manager at Loch Garten