Here at 57 degrees latitude, I’m woken early by the light, well before the 5am sunrise. More than a month past the solstice, our nights are still short, and darkness brief. It makes me both wired and tired.
Surrendering to the day’s pull, I head out on my favourite walk beside the River Spey, where it swells into a loch. The marshy land is rich with green rushes, willows and a thicket of bog myrtle, fragrant when crushed in the hand. I pass under an avenue of great oaks where the rooks rise and resettle, and on across an open field, rippling with summer grasses and wildflowers; one sweep of grass bears a froth of seedheads, now glittering mauve in the morning dew and laced with the tiniest of spiderwebs. The colour theme is echoed by the purple harebells and the heathers: the last of the magenta bell heather, and the early amethyst blooms of ling.
By contrast, the loch is dark green and as still as glass, except where a wraith of mist is breathing across the waters, faintly ruffling the surface. A lapwing arrives in a dippy flap, settling to pick through the mud on the shore; mallards upend in the shallows; a heron beats a steely path south, great wings ploughing the air.
On an island nearby is the main draw: the osprey nest, which today is brimming with domestic bustle. The female oversees her chicks as they perch on the edge, taking awkward steps, firing white streams of poop and occasionally stretching their wings, cheeping incessantly. Their clamour is rewarded as the male swoops in and delivers a fish, then flaps away to a nearby larch. Talons take hold and beaks tear at the flesh, though there is little pause in the pips.
Soon these chicks will fledge and learn to fish for themselves, ready to migrate in early September. The parents will leave first and the chicks follow, flying more than 3,000 miles to reach the same wintering grounds in west Africa.
I wish I could stay here all day. With apologies to Robert Frost, “The loch is lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And hours to go before I sleep, / And hours to go before I sleep.”
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
