The Well of Ishrahan

 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.