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Cameras... Light.....wait for it...!

Thanks to some very helpful paws the Glaslyn Osprey site is almost ready for action! Camera is up, Cabins due in a few days and the star attraction - the Ospreys themselves - in just over a week!!

We will be kicking off with an easter egg hunt with goody bags and an easter raffle on site! So come try your luck and bag some chocolate treats. Yum!

See you soon!

From the Osprey team; Geraint Williams, Katie Wilson, Stuart Ryan and myself Ceri Thomas.

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Camera..... goleuada..... disgwyl amdani....!

Diolch i pawenau glen ci Geraint mae'r safle Gweilch y Pysgod Glaslyn yn bron barod am y cychwyn!  Mae'r Camera i fynny, bydd yr Cabanau yma mewn ddirnod neu dau a bydd y ser y sioe - yr Gweilch ei hynan - ym a mewn just dros wythnos!!

Bydd yna hefyd Hela Wyau Pasg gyda sachau da da ac rafle Pasg lawr ar y safle! Dewch trio am tamiad o siocled! mmmm!

Hwyl!

Oddiwrth y Tim Gweilch; Geraint Williams, Katie Wilson, Stuart Ryan a fi Ceri Thomas

The snow may still be here but in a months time the Glaslyn valley will again hear the flip flapping of Osprey wings as they settle back in their summer home!

Geraint Williams, who is heading operations at the site for a second year, has consulted his crystal ball and says that great and fantastic things will commence around the  19th of March!

The site at Pont Croesor near Porthmadog will be open with a brand new look to await their arival 10 am to 6pm every day.

With Easter Egg Hunts planned for the holidays and our time table of events filling up there will be plenty to do this year!    

Will update soon

Woohoo!

Ceri  

The Glaslyn Osprey Date with Nature event in north Wales has finally closed its doors for the 6th season on a very wet and windy weekend. It was another very successful year with three more osprey chicks fledging, and over 30,000 people visiting the site to see these wonderful balls of fluff grow and thrive into spectacular birds of prey.

Hundreds of people also followed the seasons’ story online via this blog, and got involved in two community events which raised over £800 for the RSPB and its conservation work.

The Glaslyn osprey pair have now successfully raised 12 chicks since first nesting in north Wales in 2004, the family of five have now started their migration south to Africa.  All three chicks were ringed this year so in two or three years time we hope to see them returning, a Glaslyn chick from 2006 has successfully bred in Scotland this year!

The Date with Nature project led by RSPB Cymru staff and volunteers is now closed for the winter but will open again in late March next year. Details of this project and others across the UK can be found on the RSPB website at www.rspb.org.uk/datewithnature

Where has the time gone!? It seems like just last week when we were setting up the site and ensuring the cameras were working for efficient monitoring of the nest and eggs.

Yet here we are, five months gone and three chicks successfully fledged and on their way to Africa.  Indeed, the adult male and adult juvenile have not been seen today and we assume that the somewhat milder weather of today has prompted them to leave Glaslyn.

I’d just like to say a BIG thank you to everyone (staff and volunteers) who have made my first season such a delight as well as an experience I’ll never forget. I’m already planning the next season and look forward to seeing you again next year. Here’s hoping for few more chicks to add to our osprey success here in Glaslyn!

Thank you to you all!

The female ospreys have not been seen this week at all, this includes the mother osprey and two female chicks (tag numbers 90 and 91). It’s possible that they have started their migration, the only ospreys left now are the father and middle male chick (tag YF).

After stopping feeding the male chick for a few days, the father is now feeding him again with fish on a regular basis. We were hoping that he would have stopped feeding the chick by now to encourage independence and the potential start of his migration as the others have done – but this is not the case yet.

At 2pm yesterday (Wednesday 26 August) another adult female osprey was seen flying around the nest.  She eventually landed on the nest and tried for up to 40 mins to take a fish off the young male, but eventually he chased her off.

We originally thought this female osprey was the mother osprey, however on closer inspection we realised she had lighter markings on her chest and the young male chick did not recognise her.

In June and July, I visited several local schools to raise awareness of the project and we set up a competition where we asked the children to send in potential names for the three chicks. This competition will close on Monday 31 August and we’ll be choosing the names at random the same day – we’ll post the results on the blog immediately.

The Glaslyn Osprey site reached a milestone last weekend and recorded its 30,000th visit. The coffee morning on Saturday 22 August was very well attended and was a great success, we were also lucky enough to have great weather the whole day. Thank you to everyone for their support and help on the day.

I’ve managed to get hold of some pictures of the ringing in response to several of you enquiring to see the process taking place. The lady you can see in the picture is Adrienne Stratford who works for the BTO, and she along with another gentleman helped to ring the three osprey chicks in June this year.

Just to let you all know to keep your eyes peeled if you’re in the Llanddeusant area over the next few days as Rothes - one of Loch Garten’s osprey chicks - has begun her migration to Africa and was seen yesterday morning at 5am near Llanddeusant on Anglesey.
 
The female chick was last seen at Loch Garten on Sunday 9 August and was reported to have stopped off near Llanddeusant yesterday.

She’s had an interesting route so far, venturing north, as far as Garve, north west of Inverness, on Friday, before returning back to the nest area and then departing south on Sunday morning.

She passed close to Ardrishaig on Loch Lommond-side, over flew Saltcoats, Ayrshire, heading out over the Irish Sea passing over Isle of Man and has now been spotted near Llanddeusant.
 
The eager chick began her long migration before the adult female EJ. The rest of the clan EJ, Odina, Mallachie and Garten remain at Loch Garten but are expected to leave on their long migration over the next couple of weeks.

To follow the Loch Garten osprey’s migration visit:  www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/l/lochgarten/blog.asp

I’ve been going through some of your comments today and noticed a few questions from one or two of you. So to answer your enquiries the three chicks were ringed on Thursday 18 June, and at this point the youngest chick was approximately four and a half weeks old, the middle and eldest chick were approximately five weeks old.

The youngest chick is female and has been tagged with the numbers 91, the middle chick is male and was tagged with the letters YF and the eldest chick is female and was tagged with the numbers 90.

I’m also looking into uploading the images for those of you who’d like to see the ringing take place, so I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from BTO if I can have access to the images and will upload them onto the blog immediately.

Thanks to you all for your continued interest

We’re very sorry not to have uploaded a blog for so long, but the blogging software has been updated recently and we have been having some teething problems with the software, but we’re back on track now and will keep you all updated until the end of the season.

Since we updated you in mid July about the chicks fledging they have now become very independent. The mother has not been seen for two days (since Saturday 8 August) and hasn’t been on the nest for over a week, this is normal behaviour as the female will start her migration before the rest of the family.

The two older chicks have started to fish for themselves, but the youngest chick (tag 91) is still relying on her father to feed her. All three chicks have been seen flying around the nest, and in the surrounding area, and are probably feeding around the river in the valley.

They all return to the nest roughly two times a day, usually first thing in the morning around 7am and anytime after 4pm in the afternoon. The eldest chick (tag 90) doesn’t return as often as the rest of the family, this is a good sign and demonstrates that she is becoming a lot more independent and able to feed for herself.

The youngest chick is still very dependent on the father for food, she still sits on the nest and calls for 20 minutes  every day, when she sees her father approach with food she’ll fly to meet him, grab the food and bring it back to the nest to eat.

All three chicks are the same size now and the father will ease off from feeding the youngest so that she becomes independent. We should be seeing the chicks less and less over the next few weeks as they prepare for their first trip to Africa where they live over the winter.

This trip is approx 3,500 miles one-way and the chicks will do this in stages, stopping every so often to rest and feed.

I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone involved especially those who  supported the Community Weekend on the 18 and 19 July, this was a great success even though the weather was a bit damp!

The next event will be a coffee morning on Saturday 22 August from 10am until 2pm, where there will also be a car boot sale as well as several cake stalls set up on the day. If you want to know more please call me on 07921 284 321.

Its all happening here at Glaslyn, the third chick has now fledged and took her first flight at 4.48pm on Saturday 11 July.
 
At first glance she seemed to be a bit unsure of herself, but once she’d got the confidence to make a move there was no stopping her.

All three youngsters are now flying around the immediate vicinity of the nest, and the father still brings fish to the nest for them to feed.

Over the next few days they’ll slowly build up their confidence and wing muscles and will then develop to hunting and feeding alongside their father.

We’ll keep you updated as much as we can over the next few weeks with their activities and how they develop.

The second osprey chick successfully took his first flight yesterday (Wednesday 8 July) at around 2.05pm in the afternoon.

The chick - ring number YF - hovered for a while over the nest then sat on top of the pole for a few minutes, he then dived off the pole and flew around the nest before crashing head first into the nest - it wasn’t the best of landings but with more practice I’m sure he’ll improve!

The third chick is showing a lot of promise, flapping, and fluffing her wings while watching her siblings flying around.

The father continues to find fish for the chicks, while the mother continues to feed the chicks.

We’re all on tenterhooks waiting for the third chick to fly and we’ll let you all know as soon as we see anything happening.

The eldest osprey chick from the nest at Glalsyn near Porthmadog successfully took its first flight on Monday 6 July at 11.48am.

The youngster has been flying around the immediate area of the nesting site practicing her flying skills, but won’t go any further than this until her siblings have fledged which we hope will happen over the next few days.

Once the other chicks have fledged they will continue to use the nest as a base and will rely on their father to teach them skills such as hunting and flying, they will stay within the Glaslyn Valley and use the river and the estuary to hone their skills.

We believe several of the staff and volunteers saw the chick attempting to fly over the weekend by hovering above the nest out of camera shot, but she did not actually leave the nest until Monday morning.

The youngsters are almost as big as the adults now but still have juvenile plumage, so visitors can tell them apart from their parents.  Ospreys are renowned for being extremely accurate hunters even at high speeds, and the parent birds will be giving their young master-classes in hunting during the coming weeks.

If you’re planning to visit us this month we are holding a Community Weekend on 18 and 19 July from 10am until 5pm. This will give local people and visitors the chance to visit the site and see these fantastic birds of prey.

During the weekend there will be a range of activities including a medieval re-enactment display, owl pellet dissection and treasure hunt trail, children will be able to take alpacas walking around the visitor area, and local arts and craft stalls will be displaying their goods.

Details of this event and information about the project can be found on the RSPB website at www.rspb.org.uk/datewithnature .

On Thursday 18 June the weather conditions were ideal to ring the young chicks, so an early start was essential.

At 9am that morning myself, Steve and Adrienne (from BTO), and two volunteers (Judith Babbage and Gwyn Harrison) were there to witness the occasion.

Steve climbed the tree and approached the nest while the parents flew overhead; the chicks were then placed into individual sacks and lowered to the ground. Adrienne was waiting at the bottom of the tree and ringed them in a matter of minutes.

The rings used were white with the letters YF, 90 and 91 on them – these will be used for future identification of the chicks. Both volunteers had a ringside seat and were delighted to be involved in a once of a lifetime opportunity like this.

Once they’d been ringed the chicks were placed back into their individual sacks and lifted back to the top of the tree where Steve was waiting. Within two minutes of us leaving the site, the male bird had landed with a fish and the female had started to feed it to the chicks.

Visitor numbers have been excellent again this year and we have exceeded 18,000 as of last week, and we hope this will continue into the summer season.

For those who are interested, pictures of the ringing taking place will be up at the viewing site by this weekend.

Back in June, we were fortunate enough to have a residential volunteer helping us on site. The volunteer lived in a caravan in Prenteg for a week and helped us with species protection on site, and monitored the birds and their activities on a daily basis.

I’d just like to thank her for her work and wanted you all to see what she thought of her experience, she said: “I had a wonderful time, everyone was wonderful. I felt that I was doing something useful and would definitely recommend this to anyone”.

We offer residential volunteering at various sites across the UK, so if you’re interested in this sort of thing and would like to know more please visit www.rspb.org.uk/volunteering

The chicks are four weeks old now and hopefully weather permitting we will be able to ring them sometime this week, we’ll keep you updated on how this goes.

The weather has been warm again over the weekend, although the mother doesn’t have to shade the chicks as much now as they are getting stronger. The chicks are preening themselves, which is a good indication of their health and their feathers are becoming very well developed.

The father is keeping away from the nest longer now - up to three hours - and is bringing back live fish to the chicks (complete with heads). This is the start of the learning process for the chicks and will help them identify what a fish looks like and how they can kill it, they’ll have to do this themselves soon enough.

A young blog follower has been keeping an eye on the ospreys closely and will this week give his first talk about he project to his Beaver Scout Group in Huddersfield. Matthew is a keen wildlife enthusiast and has visited the Osprey site several times this season alone - we’d all like to wish him well on his first ever presentation, and who knows he might be the next David Attenborough!

As we are approximately half way through the season I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers and staff, as well as visitors who have supported us so far this year – without their help and enthusiasm the project would not be possible, so thanks everyone for all your help.

There is a possibility the other ospreys could be the offspring to the pair that we have here now, although it is more likely they are the offspring from previous years until up to 2007.

All the chicks that have fledged at Glaslyn have been ringed but unfortunately, staff and volunteers have not been able to see clearly whether or not these ospreys are ringed 

Osprey’s don’t mature until they are two years old, this means they have no mating instinct, and don’t go out looking for nests / partners. When they are two years old they will look for places to nest and then they will look for a partner in that same area. At Glaslyn, the male normally returns to the nest before the female and starts to build up the nest in preparation for another breeding season.

The chicks are growing up fast - the eldest chick is roughly half the size of the mother now, which is about the same size as jackdaw - the other two chicks are slightly smaller but are fast catching up with their elder sibling.

The weather has been changeable over the weekend, but it s a lot cooler now than it was at the start of last week, and this will make a nice change to the chicks and their parents.

Hopefully, the birds should be ringed sometime next week, but as always this is weather dependent, but we’ll keep you updated on this via the blog.