Is she there or has she gone?

That was the question on everyone's lips when I took this picture. However...

Birdie folk have been gathering at this point on the Teifi estuary for over a fortnight now, after a female osprey was seen perching in a dead tree on the opposite bank. Most days she's been  fishing in the river and people dining at the nearby pub (as we did recently) have been privileged to witness some spectacular aerial displays as she hoicks her prey from the water.
But there's concern too: she should have migrated by now. British ospreys  spend the winter in West Africa and although they may make feeding stops en route the winter days further north are too short for them to catch enough fish to fulfil their nutritional needs. The hope today was to see her gone - but she was still there. 
The other one has flown, phew.


A bit of Ogden Nash to lighten the mood:

Bird watchers top my honours list.
I aimed to be one, but I missed.
Since I'm both myopic and astigmatic,
My aim turned out to be erratic, 
And I, bespectacled and binocular,
Exposed myself to comment jocular.

We don't need too much birdlore, do we, 
To tell a flamingo from a towhee:
Yet I cannot, and never will,
Unless the silly birds stand still.
And there's no enlightenment in a tour 
Of ornithological literature.
Is yon strange creature a common chickadee,
Or a migrant alouette from Picardy?

You can rush to consult your Nature guide
And inspect the gallery inside,
But a bird in the open never looks
Like its picture in the birdie books-
Or if it once did, it has changed its plumage,
And plunges you back into ignorant gloomage.
That is why I sit here growing old by inches,
Watching a clock instead of finches,
But I sometimes visualize in my gin
The Audubon that I audubin.