Simon, Wilf, Louis and Aila

 

One of the highlights of the first lockdown last year was watching Louis and Aila, the ospreys of Loch Arkaig, raise their three chicks. We discovered them at the end of April when they were already sitting on the eggs and watched until the chicks fledged in July. The other week the nest was covered in snow and very neglected when I checked it out, but today it looks like this, lots of new moss, and according to clips on youtube they are around:

I have little interest in the royal family but our Simon currently has the role of Poet Laureate and has written an elegy for Prince Philip that is a truly lovely poem, it ends with this wonderful image:

But for now, a cold April’s closing moments

parachute slowly home, so by mid-afternoon

snow is recast as seed heads and thistledown.

And Wilf was interviewed earlier this week about his life as a hill farmer, a story that left me thinking that here was a person who was truly happy:

"If someone offered me £2m to move, I would tell them to keep it. Most evenings I walk right up to the top of the valley. I look down and everything looks small and far away. And I feel like I’m on top of the world. "

Stay safe. Be kind. Stay human.