Migration

Every day the sun is a little further north as it rises, its migration paralleling the northward movement of our summer visitors. I spent a happy few hours in the cool of the cloudy afternoon watching a pair of ospreys that arrived here about two weeks ago from their winter quarters somewhere in Africa. They would have come singly, and reunited back in Cumbria where they had attempted to build a nest last year. They are still young and inexperienced, and in the time I was there, the male attempted to mate three times, he is learning what he needs to do. I did take a few photographs, but they were far too distant for the 300 mm lens, blurry pixellated blobs at the top of a tall tree.

And while the migrants are still arriving, the residents are well into their breeding season. This year I am sure there are more song thrush territories on the Knott, when I went to see if the Herb Paris was in flower (it was), I flushed a fledgling thrush that was hiding among the leaves. In our garden, we have a thrush who sings from the top of our dawn redwood tree, moving between there and a tall ash in the back lane. If he has a partner we have not seen her yet, but perhaps she is sitting quietly on a nest.

This is such a good time of the year, so full of renewal and the promise of the summer to come. The sunrise will soon be too early for me to see it except with a big effort to pull myself out of bed, today I left the house with Gus at 0610, and I'm feeling tired now.