Chapter II : The Iron Trees

Reported location N54º 38.7' W004º 50.6' Activity level: 9. Ambient: 17 DegC. Days since reset: 26. Daily VMG: 13.2 km/h

Making no excuses, you understand, but my first day of migration was a rather slow and meandering flight. Prior to this I had not ventured very far from the nest and, while I had learned the positions and shapes of all the hills and other landscape features in the area (as we must), I did not even know what the far side of those hills looked like.

It soon became clear that the world was bit larger than I had expected.

Beyond those same hills were... more hills. And mountains. And more rivers and forests and lakes than I could have believed there was room for. I soon gave up on trying to memorize each and every one, concentrating instead on more prominent or unusual features - the ones I could use for my return journey as an adult in a few years' time. (Although I was careful not to count my chicks before they were hatched, which is a proverb among us that you humans may not know.)

And as I progressed southwards, it was the evidence of human activities and habitations that came to dominate the ever-changing scene passing under my wings. As I crested yet another line of hills, I saw what I now know to be a city:[1] it was huge, extending as far as the eye could see in every direction. And it thundered.

The cacophony of sound assailed my ears from every direction: shrieks, crashes, long drawn-out wails and an all-pervasive low frequency roar. I was shocked, and turned towards the west in an attempt to avoid the worst of the racket.[2] This turned out to be a fortunate diversion because in due course it brought me along a south-going coastline: exactly the sort of terrain that we find easiest to follow on a first migration.

So follow it I did, flying by night as well as by day - luckily the moon was waxing, and rising early. Oddly, I was not tired: the excitement and novelty of this adventure buoyed me up and seemed to imbue my flight muscles with extra strength. All of this came to an abrupt end when the coastline ran out: I found myself on a narrow peninsula, with nothing in front of me but an empty and featureless sea.

It's at moments like this when a young osprey looks to instinct for guidance. I looked to mine and - rather annoyingly - did not receive any help at all from it. My still-developing navigational sense told me that due South was the preferred direction but, looking out over the grey water, my nerve failed me.

Instinct may be our guiding force, but it is not immutable. To the east I could see land in the distance, and - crucially - a slightly better pattern to the sky down there. That was the way I would go, even though instinct told me that it would add extra flying days to my journey. This proved to be another good choice.

As I flew, it became evident that I was on the north side of a huge estuary, one that narrowed gradually the further I went.[3] There were rolling hills to my left and, near the base of one in the distance, I spotted a prominent osprey nest. I diverted inland to take a closer look (the way we always do) but it turned out to be occupied and the resident male chased me all the way back to the foreshore. Still, it was valuable information: this must be a good location for ospreys and the impression was confirmed as I flew over wide flats of salt-marsh and reed, both holding more different species of birds than I even knew existed.

By the next day the estuary had narrowed to the extent that I was able to turn southwards again. More mountains were in the distance (I was beginning to believe that everywhere had “mountains in the distance”) but an obvious route lay to their eastern side. Human habitations had become sparse again, but there were sheep everywhere to be seen – sheep in numbers beyond counting: even morethanfour. Away from the sea's influence it became much warmer and Rory's forecast was shown to be accurate: the winds continued in my favour, sweeping me over moor and sheepfold. The absence of good roost sites was a constant daily problem but eventually I discovered an answer to it: the iron trees.

They were not common but never wholly absent either. Best of all, their distinctive bright[4] was visible from great distance – something that also made it easy to avoid the heavy cables strung between them. These cables did not make good perches as they were the wrong shape for my feet and seemed to be covered with a material that flexed when one tried to stand on it. But the iron trees themselves were perfect...

For roosting, we ospreys like to find a high perch (if one is available) that offers some shelter from the elements and yet affords a good vantage over the surrounding landscape. Such ideal sites are rare enough in nature but these human-made structures might have been purpose-designed for the job. They appear to be spindly and exposed but, close to, the angled metal parts that form the corners are almost as wide as an osprey wing on each flange. So in this niche, one can be invisible from the ground, protected from wind or even rain, and yet have good commanding view out. Best of all, no ground-based predator or enemy could possibly climb such a thing, so they are very safe and I took to using them for sleep whenever I could find one.

Near the end of my second week on migration, I was roosting in a very nice and well-situated iron tree, overlooking a long narrow lake near the south coast of England.[5] (England is the same as Scotland, except that Scotland is better in certain abstract and detailed ways that I won't bore you with.) From my elevated position, I could see that this lake was home to a good number of small but well-proportioned brown fish and, though I was still not really hungry, it occurred to me – having nothing much else to do that morning – that I might catch one by way of a light snack.

While I had never caught a fish for myself, I understood well enough the principle of fishing, for it is knowledge that we are born with: you fly along fairly slowly at a suitable height; the fish obligingly swim up to the surface; you dive down with feet forward, fold the wings at the last moment, and, bosh! - the fish is there in both talons, quiescent and ready to be ate at your earliest convenience. 

Well, that's the theory.

I soon found that the practice is rather different.

Our skills at catching fish have evolved through countless generations. However, the fish have also had countless generations to avoid being caught by predatory birds – and some of them have developed the ability to a high level. Add to this the problem that I couldn't actually see where the fish was before my final dive (because it was below and behind me), the sunlight reflecting off the water surface at exactly the wrong moment, and the annoying discovery that even AFTER being caught, a nabbed fish struggles like blue blazes to get away and jump back in the water – and the embarrassing truth started to dawn...

Fishing is really really difficult. And I was not much good at it. With the day's final score standing at Trout: 4, Carron: 0, I returned to my roost a sadder but wiser osprey.

I didn't really want the stupid fish anyway.

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Editor's notes:- 

[1] Glasgow

[2] The effects of environmental noise pollution on wildlife have been poorly studied, and perhaps deserve more attention from the scientific community.

[3] The Solway Firth

[4] At various points in the narrative, Carron appears to misuse the word “bright”. Birds of prey have photo-receptors in the retina of the eye that are sensitive to light in the near ultra-violet spectrum, suggesting that they can see four primary colours whereas we perceive only three. The electricity transmission pylons (“iron trees”) are made of mild steel with a protective galvanized finish. After weathering, this zinc-oxide coating has a distinctive UV reflectance peak at a wavelength around 318nm which birds would be able to see from a considerable distance.

[5] It is not easy to identify a place matching this description.  We know that Carron was in NW France on the following day, so it is possible that his "long narrow lake" may have been the upper part of the Salcombe estuary, in Devon.

 

 Chapter I: Highland storm  

 

Reported location: N57º 50.1' W004º 20.6' Activity level: 9. Ambient: 15.2 DegC. Days since reset: 22. Local movements. Daily VMG: 0 km/h*

Sometimes I have to peck myself to be sure it all really happened, because it was years ago and now - of course – I have a mate and a nest and youngsters of my own, and nothing really occurs that isn't expected or workaday. Perhaps all ospreys have adventures like mine on their first migration:

But I doubt it.

Old Rory started the whole thing, although it wasn't his fault. We chicks had fledged some few weeks earlier and, being the eldest, I took wing first by a day or so. My two sisters, though bigger, seemed less keen on exploring the local area whereas I - a male and therefore the odd one out - could not get enough of it. I toured the woods and the lake shore, and even ventured down towards the coast: morethanfour [1] wingbeats away. And that was where I met Rory. 

We had seen him before, from the nest before we could fly. Our parents made the usual fuss and noise as he passed by our tree, though not as much as when a strange osprey appeared, one from outside the area. On those occasions, all hell would break loose: alarm-calls for hours on end and – usually – no dinner as a result. It was very annoying.

To me, he seemed extremely old. His feathers were untidy; several were missing, and the patches of bright on his flanks and underwings were faded. One eye was misty and his legs bore the scars of battles long past. When I arrived, he was perched near the top of a tall dead tree overlooking the sea. I was tired, for flying is hard work when you are still getting used to it, but there was nowhere else for me to land. Being a juvenile and knowing my place, I took the lower perch, hoping for the best. Rory ignored me but at least he did not chase me away, which was something.

“Ye can fly then, young Carron” came a quavering voice, heavily accented.

I made no reply, this being more in the way of an observation than a question. It might surprise you to learn that ospreys communicate to the extent that we can. It is mostly done with posture and other non-verbal cues, rather than the continuous vocalization of humans. By this means we can also converse with other birds, provided that they are birds of prey with similar habits to our own. Rory stirred on his perch and looked down at me for the first time:

“Ye hae a wee box, ah kin see.”

I remained mute at this. It is a privilege of the elderly to state the obvious, since they dislike contradiction. The “box” had been given to me by humans before I was fledged, along with some rings for my ankles. Our father had told us that this was a normal thing that happened, although this didn't stop him screeching fit to wake the dead when our nest was approached. My sisters were terrified but I found it all rather exciting, and managed to fetch the ring-carrier man a shrewd nip with my beak during the process. He almost fell off his ladder but, regrettably, didn't.

“I don't know what the box is for.” I said, greatly daring.

“Ah used to hae wan mysel,'” mused Rory, “but it fell aff on such a day and they nivver brought me another. If ye got one, it must mean that ye are very important.”

This was encouraging, for everyone likes to think they are important. The little box is brown in colour and it rides between my shoulders, secured by straps across my chest. At first it annoyed me to have to carry such a thing around but, in truth, it weighs no more than a few bites of fish and after those first days of flying I forgot I was even wearing it. We don't know what the humans want us to do with the boxes, but they are all mad anyway.

“Ah dinnae like yon sky, by the way.” said Rory, staring out at a bank of clouds that were rolling up out of the west. “It's no canny.”

I felt the same. My nest-mates had migrated earlier that day, and I had felt an almost overpowering drive to do likewise. But some instinct had held me back, and this flight to the coast had been my attempt to satisfy – at least in part – the urge to depart. I mentioned this to Rory, who shook his head sadly:

“Ye will never see them again, nor they you. Bad weather is coming hence, and old Rory has not seen the like at this season in all his years...”

I didn't like the sound of this at all. Even at the height of summer, the weather in northern Scotland can be changeable, but it seemed that something out of the ordinary was on the way. I decided to head back towards the nest but, even as the thought formed, a steady rain began to fall and soon my flight feathers were soaking. Rory dropped down to a much lower perch which offered at least some degree of shelter, and I followed him.

The rain did not ease and was soon joined by a rising wind out of the west. Gathering force, it wrenched and tore at our pine tree which creaked and groaned under the strain until I felt sure it must give way. The storm lasted all that day and most of the next, before subsiding as suddenly as it had arrived. When my feathers had dried, I flew back to the nest site where I beheld a scene of devastation... Our nest, our beautiful homely nest that my parents had laboured so long to make, lay in ruins. One side – the side farthest away from the tree trunk – had collapsed completely, and stray sticks lay scattered far and wide. Of  my father, there was no sign. [2] 

“Gone.” said Rory, arriving with a thump on the nest edge beside me. I didn't realise that he had been following. Aimlessly I picked up a loose twig, moved it to one side, and then dropped it again. There didn't seem to be any point.

“What shall I do now?” I enquired, perhaps a little too plaintively. “Who will bring me my fish to eat?”

“Ach! - ye must fly, Carron,” replied Rory with some impatience, glancing at the sky. “There'll be no mair fish for ye here, and the time is right. Do ye see your place?”

I knew what this last question meant: from the egg, each of us is born with a number of notional “places” - at least one of which we need to find on our first migration. Really these are areas, rather than any specific location and - just as we recognise our place of hatching from the surrounding terrain, landmarks, and angles of the sun – so each bird's wintering ground is defined in “memory” by these same characteristics, even though we have never seen it. The direction and distance of these areas is not inherited from our parents: it is the cumulative gift of all the ospreys that were our ancestors, far back into deep time. [3] 

It's a good system, though rather difficult to explain. In my own case, I did not have the usual vague set of directions. Instead, I had a clear and almost perfect vision...

The place - MY place – was bordered by sharp-peaked mountains on two sides, with a desert stretching far to the west and, between these, a glittering land of river and lake, with lush green woodlands all about. At its source, the river rose in an amphitheatre of stone fed by a spring, endlessly flowing, and overlooked by shapely trees with sparse blue-grey foliage – perfect for perching.

I described all this to Rory as best I could but his reaction startled me: far from sharing my enthusiasm, he seemed to become withdrawn and agitated. He turned his back on me and stared back towards the sea.

“What's wrong?” I asked, confused. “Do you know this place? Have you been there?”

“No laddie, Ah have never been to it – and nor has any osprey that I ever spoke to, forebye. But Ah ken well whit you're talking about.”

This all came out in a hesitant, disjointed series of gestures. Rory was uneasy: as if this whole discussion was in some way improper and needed to be curtailed. There was silence for a long time and I did not dare break it. At length he began again, softly and not addressing me directly:

“There is a story, handed down from win tae another... The story tells of a hidden place, the place that all ospreys once came from morethanfour generations ago. There, d'ye see, there is the perfect winter home for our kind – and in its very midst, a spring-fed pool of blue water with silver fish so beautiful that even the hardest-hearted bird could not bear to take one... and this place even has a name: Ishrahan.”

“That is where I will go!” I shouted, flapping. “Ishrahan!”

“Ye cannot.” Rory turned to face me at last, “Listen young Carron: forget your memory of Ishrahan, fly south and find some good wintering ground in Africa where there is plenty of food. Stay two seasons and then return safely. That is all ye need to do.”

"But why?”

“No bird has ever found where Ishrahan lies. Ah dinna ken why – perhaps it is too far to fly, or the navigation is too difficult. It is no matter: there are plenty of places for ye to bide. Old Rory knows – he has visited most of them. Now get going. The wind will be at your back these next four days.”

Summer was truly over and there was nothing else to say. I spread my wings and set off for the south.

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Editor's notes:-

* VMG= Velocity Made Good. The net distance-over-time calculation between a series of specific points on a GPS track. Does not take into account minor course changes, wind drift, or other factors affecting the total distance flown during the period, which would typically be greater.

[1] It appears that ospreys have a counting system consisting of the numerals One, Two, Three, Four, and Morethanfour - which seems to represent any number that is so large as to be beyond computation.

[2] Carron does not mention his mother at any point in the narrative, although he must surely have had one. We might assume that she had migrated some weeks before the events described in the story.

[3] Osprey researchers have studied ringing data and the small amount of satellite tracking that has been carried out. No direct correlation has been found between the wintering destinations of juveniles and those of their parents. However, when the comparison is done across a regional POPULATION of birds, the degree of matching is statistically significant.