ONE DOWN…

I hope that writing blogs at past my bedtime as has been the case with both this one and the last one is not going to become the norm but I didn’t want to waste any time in telling you all that Blue 500 (Augusta) touched down on the nest at about 1230 yesterday. I made the error of taking a day off and she must have known this and sneaked in confident that I wouldn’t check the recording footage until this evening.

She hung around for a while and then disappeared for several minutes before having another short visit, just to check that Samson wasn’t hiding under a stick, before disappearing off downstream and not reappearing before the camera went off.

I didn’t see her when I was down there today but I had a relatively short visit. Now you’ll remember that last year, after she left the area supposedly on migration in early August, she had a wander around and had still only got as far as Cumbria by the beginning of September. So she is clearly not averse to checking out other nests in the area and I expect that’s what she will do now but nevertheless, will keep popping back to see if Samson has arrived. So we must all stroke lucky black cats or shake the hand of a chimney sweep or do whatever we think will bring Samson home quickly, before she finds anyone else to tempt her away. Several people have told me that they “have a feeling” about him arriving tomorrow. If that’s the case, I expect that I’ll be here this time tomorrow but, in the meantime, let’s celebrate the arrival of Augusta and her hopeful reunion to come with Samson.