There was a delicate, apricot light as we arrived at Gibraltar Point, where Lincolnshire dips its toes into The Wash. There was a wisp of mist hanging over the dunes but the sun saw through it and lit the saltmarsh from the east.We explored the dunes, watching for signs of life. It was early morning, and cold, but already birds were on the move. Goldcrests fluttered around in the sea buckthorn with its bright orange berries. Siskins, bramblings and redpolls flew overhead, moving down the coast after making landfall further north. Seeing these birds boggles my mind every time - they're tiny things and they've just flown across the North Sea!The noisiest migrants were the long strings of pink-footed geese, ‘oink-oink-oinking' their way south-east to cross the wide estuary and reach Norfolk, their home for winter. These little brown geese probably hatched in Iceland this spring and crossed the North Atlantic in their family groups.
Unseen struggles
More often, birds' efforts go unseen by humans. When we do get an insight into migration, we don't always see what we want. That's become all too clear this week, as Deshar, the osprey chick hatched on 26 May at Loch Garten, set off on his journey south to Africa. Luck plays a huge part: if Deshar had waited two more days to cross the Channel, he'd have enjoyed clear weather. It could have been so different! He set off on a foggy Friday and took the wrong course with the wind behind him. As an inexperienced navigator, he couldn't have known what was ahead of him.Satellite-tracking Deshar, and his older sister Nethy, has allowed us a glimpse of the challenges that migrating birds face. What should have been a straightforward, short flight across the English Channel at its narrowest point turned into a journey that ended in the way we hoped it wouldn't.
He flew down the Channel and out into the Atlantic non-stop, where he gave up the fight more than 100 hours later, south-west of the Azores and hundreds of miles from where he should have been.
Keep flying
You have to admire the stamina of birds like Deshar. He didn't know where he was going, but he had to go with the flow and keep flying. He held on as long as he could. Meanwhile, Nethy has taken a perfect route across La Manche and into western France. Thousands of other birds are on the move right now, all facing challenges of weather, navigation, food and predators.While we can't help ospreys see through fog or fly in the right direction, we're doing everything we can to make sure they can breed undisturbed. It's a tough world out there.
You're quite right, Greenbog. Considering what birds are up against, it's amazing any of them migrate successfully! But they do, and they're doing it all the time. Deshar won't have been the first osprey to end up in the Atlantic, and he won't be the last, either. All we can do is give them the best chance of a good start in life, then it's over to them.