Under 24 hour observation by RSPB volunteers, the nesting site in Dodd Wood, only a mile distant from us, is just visible from the Belvedere with a good pair of binoculars. There’s a good webcam too and much more on the award winning Osprey Watch site.

The ospreys are good news for local shops, hotels and small businesses as they attract visitors to the area, still recovering from last November’s floods. But they are not the only show in the valley.

There are other birds of prey which are fascinating to watch. Peregrines and sparrow hawks are frequently about and yesterday, walking with friends on Coledale Common below Barrow, I looked up to see 20 metre ahead of me, a kestrel hover in the wind, stoop down on a small vole and carry it off still squeaking to a nearby rock.

An hour later a buzzard was wheeling in huge circles high above Braithwaite Lodge and the nearby plantation, as we descended to the village. If you want some good bird watching, the Derwent valley and the northern lakes take a lot of beating.

It all seems a long way from the flooded rivers five months ago (see my 23rd November blog posting,), which brought misery and heartache as families became homeless, bridges and footpaths were smashed and hundreds of small businesses were brought to their knees.

The good news is that substantial repair work has been done. At Little Braithwaite, the smashed side of the beck has been rebuilt with huge rocks and a massive bank of earth behind (see photo), while at High Hill in Keswick the Greta river has now a raised concrete containing wall with 6 inches thick facing stones.

The bad news here – according to one of the stone masons I spoke to – is that this is not high enough and it will have to be increased in height at least a further 10 inches when there is more money available. Oh yes and at Little Braithwaite there’s a problem too. The road bridge – which crossed behind the hedge in the middle photo – was swept away and will not be replaced before next year. You’ve probably guessed the reason by now!

We soon found the reason though. A pile of earth and slate chips (see foreground of the photos below) had been heaped up into the small herb garden – dug out from a hole, which dived deep under the newly created south lawn. It didn’t take long to find who was responsible as our Peter Rabbit was on shift duty all afternoon, collecting moss for a new comfortable burrow.

The pictures tell the story and now we are left with a problem. Rabbits and vegetable growing don’t go well together and planting is due to start this week in the new raised bed.

POSTSCRIPT – 17th March: The hole and the rabbit mystery deepens
Less than 24 hours after taking the photos above we returned today to the rabbit hole to discover that it had been completely filled in with a layer of moss placed on top covering the earth. Does anyone know what has happened here? It was not the work of any humans we are sure. We assume that yesterday was the work of a female rabbit – Petra not Peter! – creating a nest for her expected litter. Did she cover the hole in because the site was too busy or is she in the burrow, having been covered in by a mate? There is no obvious alternative exit that we can see. Let us have your answers and ideas on this.

The Lake District Herald (15 August) reports that the PM took an evening launch trip on Derwentwater and was particularly interested in Derwent Isle and the house there (See photo above).

He may not have realised that he’s in good company. Another well known holiday maker in the Keswick area was similarly fascinated by the scene. Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, spent several holidays at Lingholm (bottom left of photo opposite) in the early 1900s and had her red squirrels in the book sailing out on wooden rafts across Derwentwater to St Herbert’s Island, 500 yards to the south.

Full details are in Margaret Lane’s excellent book, The Magic Years of Beatrix Potter (pages 108-111). A copy of this is in The Larches’ library.

One similarity we’d been expecting was breeding ospreys, but we didn’t get a sight at all – until the day we left. We had noted the strange bundle of sticks on the top of the electricity pole (see photo opposite) the day before but assumed this was an old nest.

Passing the pole on the way out, we could see a head and beak jutting out from the nest and as we stopped there were cries from the young birds. Over the next 30 minutes we were treated to a great display (see below) as parents and young moved around the nest and flew over the ponds.

The difference? Well here in the Grand Teton National Park the birds just get on with their lives oblivious to traffic, noise and humans; and attract little interest from passers by. In Cumbria as one of the prime visitor attractions for the whole of the Park, the ospreys are viewed annually by over 50,000 people from the watch point in Dodd Wood above Bassenthwaite; and for five months they receive 24 hour protection from an army of volunteers.

There are similarities with the Lake District National Park, though here it’s on a grander scale. Grand Teton rises steeply to 12,700 feet just 10 miles to our north and I set off a herd of elk on my run one morning. Yesterday we found the bison. The two parks were founded in their present forms in the years 1950-51 and are roughly the same size. Both focus on conservation and are hugely popular, but the real difference comes with the maps!

Where the Cumbrian fells have often old Viking names, the US maps are littered with a modern vocabulary like Surprise, Solitude and Amphitheatre Lakes, Disappointment Peak, Battleship Mountain, Death and Paintbrush Canyons, Symmetry Spire; or have names of settlers, soldiers or surveyors – Mt Owen and Bradley Lake.

The French trappers scored some hits too with the Gros Ventre (stomach) plain, Rendezvous Mountain [see photo above] and Teton (breast) the tallest peaks in the Park. Teewinot Mountain and Lake Taminah are just two of a few native American names which have survived the settlers’ onslaught!

Two tips if you want to see the squirrels – make sure there are hazel nuts in the feeding box and get up early in the morning. The kitchen’s a good look-out point. Photos from some earlier sightings are in the Wildlife section

I’m heading through the birdsong for Bog House. A pheasant clatters up squawking, where six months ago a deer had leaped from the snow as I passed. There’s a rainbow over Keswick and the river’s full after rain, but it’s the sun that has the best hand this evening, moving round the Derwent Valley amphitheatre to spotlight one by one the big names.

Clough Head is first – a brilliant yellow with a rare quasi-lenticular cloud show above, then it’s Barrow’s turn, the dark green profile of its ridge sharp against the evening sky. Next Catbells – it’s an unusual shape when seen here from the north. The clouds slowly shift while I thread my way through a birch thicket. As I climb the river bank, to NNE below a clouded Skiddaw, Dodd and its woods are slowly turning a golden green and brown. The top is shorn of trees, but the lower sections retain a thick canopy.

This is osprey terrain now and I can see the position of the nest. The parent birds aren’t flying, but a blackbird sings her heart out to me for a full four minutes from the top of a field post. Only as I get back to The Larches at 9.45 does the sun’s spotlight on Dodd click off. What an evening of son et lumière it’s been. Who needs a home entertainment system, when the best show’s outside?

POSTSCRIPT: For a map and description of a longer variant of this circular walk and more photos see Walk No 2 of the Walking and transport section of the site.

Extinct in the UK since 1979, the large blue has now been brought back to six new sites in Devon thanks to the meticulous research of Jeremy Thomas and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in uncovering its secret life cycle. Read more about this fascinating story of the ant, the caterpillar and strange happenings in the south in this week’s Guardian (16th June).