Foulshaw Moss with osprey poised for migration

Juvenile osprey bound for southern Spain, Portugal, or west Africa

Young osprey are nurtured by their parents and protected by Cumbria Wildlife Trust at Foulshaw Moss. Their nest-platform is visible, but inaccessible.  Only a fool would venture onto the moss without a detailed knowledge of safe ways amongst deep trenches, once made by peat cutters, now water-logged and overgrown with heather and sphagnum moss.  A few timbers mark the site of a peat cutter's shed. Close by, white butterflies flit over purple heather mingling with leaf-green  bog myrtle.
We're just in time. The adult female osprey recently set off on migration. Adult males and young birds will leave within a few days.  Alone,  they go alone. The young birds are fledged and will have learnt to fish in rivers debouching into Morecambe Bay, and in the Kent Estuary. Fish-hawk, river hawk, sea-hawk, a fishing osprey is an impressive sight and Shakespeare held them 'sovereign' as if they dazzle their prey and conjure fish into their grasp.  They'll need that skill.  Possibly only 2/6 birds will reach their destination in the south of the Iberian peninsula, and West Africa.  Lost, simply lost. All birds are ringed but not radio-tagged so if they fail they'll disappear. 
 Coriolanus Act 4 scene 7     Aufidius says of Coriolanus
I think he'll be to Rome,
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature 

In The Cockleshell Heroes, Helena Bonham-Carter narrates the story of a  WWWII commando raid on German ships in the port of Bordeaux in occupied France. Ships are damaged and destroyed  but five of the six British canoes are lost without trace. 
The Wife of Usher's Well is a traditional ballad where a 'carline wife' who may have supernatural powers, sends her three 'stout and stalwart' sons to sea. Believed lost, they return in the dark of November, at Martinmas, wearing hats of birch which grows only at 'the gates of Paradise.' It's a ghostly visitation. 

It's a chiaroscuro day of darkness and light at Foulshaw Moss.  One moment the purple heather and green leaves of bog myrtle are illuminated,  then  plunged into sudden gloom. I wonder how this hottest summer on record has affected the flora of the moss.  I see no cotton grass and little cross-leaved heath.  Some plants will be resilient in a summer drought, others will struggle.  If cranberries are ripening they're well hidden in sphagnum moss.  
​Bog myrtle has clusters of green nutlets but most shrubs are showing scaly catkins, already formed to overwinter until they flower next April.  
Heather flowers are tinged with autumn bronze as the osprey prepare to leave.  Fare well sea-hawks, see you next spring.