Both our young ospreys have definitely gone and are definitiely on the move.
Alba's last known position, at 21.00 hrs last night (21st) was near Carlisle in Cumbria on the river Eden between Beaumount and Kirkandrews.
Caledonia's last known position, also at 21.00 hours last night was just north of Harrogate near Thirsk in Yorkshire.
Alba left on the morning of 19th as we suspected, she spent the night of 19th near Auchterarder & GlenEagles and the night of 20th was spent in the borders. Caledonia also left on 19th and headed west towards Fort William before curving round to spend that evening near Loch Awe, in the Ardbrecknish area. Her night of 20th was spent in South Lanarkshire
So far so good. Exactly where they are right now, we don't know. Remember, it's not real-time data. We'll always only know where they were not where they are. With reasonable weather today they are likely to have pushed on further, and interestingly we took a call this afternoon from a former volunteer (thanks Carole) to say that she had just seen a sat-tag aerial-sporting osprey near Shoreham, Sussex at about 2 pm this afternoon. It will be interesting to see on the next lot of data if it’s one of ours. The next data will be in three days time so we'll report the latest news on either Sunday or Monday.
Whether Odin can sense that they have gone, or whether he gives them only just so much time to either re-appear or not, we cannot know, but we have not seen him at all today (22nd), as I pen this at 3pm, so it's looking increasingly like he too has headed south. He was seen very briefly on Monday and Tuesday but not today, so far.
The Oprey Centre is still open - we do not close until Sunday September 2nd, but with all our ospreys gone, we are feeling a bit bereft. However with all ospreys on the move, others further north of us are likely to be passing through our area and may call in. We've seen this before, so we might not yet have seen our last osprey of the year. Meantime though our visitors are enjoying our tales of the season-past, thrilling at our resident red squirrels and woodpeckers and today, obligingly we had crested tits showing on the feeders too.
It is though, feeling all rather autumnal; the heather is in flower, blanketing the area with swathes of mauve and festooned with dew-covered cobwebs in the early morning. The swifts have largely gone, and those that haven't are gearing up to leave, forming high-circling vortices of screaming banshees. The swallows too are gathering, on telephone wires ready for the off. The late brood at my house finally fledged just last Wednesday. Wood pigeons are in the pinewoods mopping up any remaining blaeberries, and mallards do this too, which always looks rather bizarre. Along the trails, mixed flocks of tits are forming, blue, coal, great and crested, with goldcrests, treecreepers, robins and chaffinches making up the numbers. No song though, or very little, just the occasional late-season blast of defiance from an opportunistic, tardy willow warbler. And yet, hearteningly, there are still at least some signs of summer, the late explosion in places of Scotch Argus butterflies for example, so we're not done yet.
(My thanks to Jayne in the office for downloading the data)
STOP PRESS: I've just taken a call from Osprey Centre and our boy is back, Odin hasn't gone yet. He just landed in the dead tree adjacent to the nest.