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Our first osprey has fledged, 16.22 this afternoon. It's the oldest of the three that had the longest wing span (at ringing) and the middle in weight - 1390g. This bird is 49 days old and is very early making its maiden flight. The ring is YD and despite thinking that we had three females this year, most observers in recent days have sided with two females and YD being a male. Nobody will really know of course until YD comes back in a few years time hopefully to breed for him/her self.

The first flight came 105 years after the Wright brothers' maiden flight, climbed to a similar altitude of 10 feet and lasted three seconds longer that Orville's attempt (YD - 15 seconds)

It just goes to show that you cannot predict nature, not one member of staff, volunteers or visitors guessed it would be this early when our first chick took to the sky. If you live within travelling distance (whatever that means!) try and come down over the weekend - it could be you that sees one of the other chicks fledge next.

Here's that magical moment when YD took to the air for the first time

One down, two to go...

We're getting close now, very close. Even though many of us have been watching these ospreys for years, it's still a little strange to see three such large chicks in one nest at the same time. As ever at this stage, there is much friendly debate as to the day the first chick is going to fledge - opinions vary from as early as this Saturday through to next Wednesday. A lot of serious wing flapping going on at the moment and the occasional helicopter flight as I call them, actually being airborne for a few seconds hovering perilously over the nest; this can't be an easy skill to master in the strong winds we've had of late. It's incredible to see the live images of the chicks as they do this, they constantly micro adjust their position in the air by moving different, and sometimes individual, feathers. They are continiously changing the pitch of their streamlined bodies in relation to differing wind conditions just like a large aircraft would by using rudder, flaps and ailerons but in a much more elegant way of course! We sometimes forget how masterful ospreys are at aerial manoeuvring, this photograph shows our male osprey returning to the nest a few days ago only to find an intruder near by. The image is not upside-down!

Those that have been following our live swallow-cam at the visitor centre will be pleased to know that we, or should I say they, now have five hungry little mouths to feed. Brilliant to see these on a 46" plasma screen!

For the Welsh speakers/learners blogging in, the whole of the BBC's Galwad Cynnar radio program will be live from the Glaslyn Osprey Project this Saturday 5, July from 06.30 to 08.00 on Radio Cymru. This will coincide with our second community weekend of the season - everybody welcome as usual, over 2,500 people visited during the last event. (see earlier blog for some more details)

Finally, for those of you that visit, please be aware that we are in the middle of some construction changes at the moment and in the next few days the entrance/exit gate will change to a newer site around 70 metres away (towards Porthmadog). As soon as we have our first chick fledge, I'll let you know..

Well, as I write this I'm looking out of the window and apart from everything being green, one would be forgiven for thinking that we are in the middle of winter. It's cold, pouring down with rain, and blowing a gale - not bad for the last week in June! The good news however is that our three maturing ospreys are making excellent progress staying well inside the recess of the nest sheltering from the worst of the weather; it may not give us the best opportunity to view them from the hide but at least with our fantastic camera systems we can watch their every move from the warmth of the visitor centre.

Rainbow trout seems to be fish of the day at the moment. Despite the rough weather, our adult male seems to bring a steady supply of fish in to the nest - obviously his fishing experience over the years puts him in good stead to deal with adverse weather, both in Wales and in Africa of course. He's ten years old this month in fact - many happy returns old chap!

For those of you that visit regularly we have seen a lot of other camera action this week. The swallows that we watch live on the swallow-cam (they are actually nesting in the osprey hide!) are due to be parents again in the next few days, they have five eggs; and yesterday we counted 27 little birds on the live river cam we have with the two feeders - mostly blue/great tits and goldfinches and our insistent greater spotted woodpecker. A wonderful time to visit if you are within travelling distance, bring a picnic - and an umbrella..

It's that time of year again when we ring our osprey chicks. On Friday afternoon at 4pm all three chicks were successfully ringed with a BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) metal ring placed on the left leg and a white plastic ring on the right leg.

These plastic rings are for identification purposes, hopefully when these ospreys return to the UK to breed for themselves in three or four years, we'll be able to ID them in the field with a powerful telescope.

The metal BTO rings are placed on birds for recoveries, that is, injured or dead birds could be reported to the BTO giving a time, date and location.

Of the 2,000 or so ospreys that have been ringed in the UK since the 1960s, around 10% of these have been reported back to the BTO; some of these have been found in rather exotic locations such as Iceland and the Cape Verde Islands, one ring was even found in the stomach of a crocodile a few years back!

Apart from ringing the ospreys, we also measure their wing lengths and weigh them. These are their weights:

• YC - 1230 grammes
• YD - 1390 grammes
• YE - 1547 grammes

Going by their weights and 'feel'  of the legs, we think we have a single gender threesome this year - probably all females, it is very difficult to know for sure however. Very strong winds today - gusting to 70mph but the birds seem fine sheltering as they do in the recess of the nest protected from the worst of the winds.

Doesn't time fly (excuse the pun!), our oldest chick is four weeks old today - happy birthday. They are really looking like ospreys now having progressed through the reptilian looking stage and staff, volunteers and visitors alike are attempting to work out whether we have a combination of boys and girls or whether they are all the same sex. Generally the whiter the bird the more likely it is to be male and conversely darker brown birds are typically female.

Here's the happy birthday girl/boy...

Fishing forays become more frequent now - up to six fish a day. Usually a combination of mullet, trout, salmon and the odd coarse fish - today salmon seemed to be the fish of the day.

A big thank you to all of you out there that support us by visiting, reading and leaving messages on the blog, keep those thought coming in.

More in a few days...

More mammoth fish have been brought back this week, yesterday afternoon the male brought back one of the biggest salmon we have seen at the nest — a three pounder at the least. This is probably at the heaviest end of the weight range that ospreys can manage, prey approaching the weight of the osprey itself. It was so large in fact that he decided not to leave the salmon at the nest with the three week old chicks and carried it off to his favourite perching tree to devour the head of the fish himself.

Now that the chicks are too big to brood, the female strategically positions herself on the rim of the nest between the chicks and the direct glare of the sun. As the sun moves gradually westwards so does she, moving in a clockwise direction around the nest, a bit like a sun dial.

Despite growing ever larger, the chicks will not be as proficient at regulating their own body temperature as their parents for a few weeks yet, so any help from Mum and Dad is greatly appreciated.

As we opened the visitor centre this morning we were treated to a real raptor fest; peregrine, red kite, goshawk and of course osprey all in one vista. Our three chicks will not be completely safe from predators at the nest for another week to 10 days so we're hoping that these fellows will be targeting other prey for the next few days!

Well, what a week! All three chicks are doing very well and are the size of pigeons by now being approximately two weeks old. As they get larger of course, so do their appetites and our male bird has been demonstrating his hunting skills this weekend bringing up to six fish a day back to the nest. Its at this stage also that the chicks become a little bit more independent and are now moving around freely in the nest rather than just staying in the brooding cup; it must be difficult for the female to protect all three youngsters when they can be several feet apart in the nest. Goshawks and other raptors will still be a threat for another couple of weeks yet.

Of note also, today we saw the male feeding the chicks as well as the female for the first time this year. Disregard the old text books that say this doesn't happen, it certainly does in Wales!. Having said that however, it's Mum that is the boss in the nest — she allows the male to help feed the chicks only for so long until she decides to take over and banish him to a nearby tree or back to the cob estuary for more mullet.

A strange thing happened yesterday, whilst hovering over the nest with his latest catch (see photo) the male actually dropped the fish into the nest edge, something that we have not seen before. Perhaps he was afraid of being ousted out again by his bossy wife — can't blame him really..
The intruder osprey is still around and causes our pair some grief from time to time; surely this bird is here to stay the summer now as its too late to be a migratory bird.

Finally a big thank you to the dozens of volunteers that have helped out again this week, particularly Colin and Anne who finally made our protection caravan camouflaged!. Also, all those people that helped out in the visitor centre - we welcomed and joined our 200th member of the season to the RSPB on Thursday, well done.

The chicks are between seven and 10 days old now and getting bigger by the minute seemingly. This shot was taken at 10am this morning just after a hearty mullet meal and its at this stage that they take on the appearance of little dinosaurs; we can still just about make them apart - the oldest on the right and the (whiter) youngest in the background.

Great excitement yesterday morning. We know that at least one other osprey has been around in previous years but yesterday another bird actually landed on the Glaslyn nest to the horror of our female who reacted aggressively to the intruder. For the first time we had three ospreys (well, six including the chicks) in the same nest at the same time which is good news of course as we have other potential birds around that could displace our Glaslyn pair should something happen to either of them or if one fails to return from Africa in the future. Remember, we still only have the one breeding pair in Wales, officially our rarest breeding species.
Unfortunately, we were unable to see if this intruder osprey had a ring on its leg, now eyes peeled for the rest of this week..

The first chick is a week old today and all thee are doing exceptionally well. It always amazes me their rate of growth at this time, they must have tripled in size and weight in the last few days; of course, in another five or six weeks time they will be the size of adult ospreys with a wing span nearing six feet!

In conjunction with the RSPB and BBC Springwatch celebrations (new series starting 26 May on BBC1), we're holding a community weekend this Bank Holiday, all three days, Saturday through to Monday. This is the RSPB's way of acknowledging the importance of community involvement with the Glaslyn Osprey Project and engaging with local partners and charities.

We'll have our usual face painting sessions for kids (and some adults!), bird safaris, refreshment stalls, art and craft, books and photography stalls plus many more. So come down for a few hours if you possibly can and join in the fun.

It's been a busy weekend here at the Glaslyn. No sooner had the first chick arrived a second popped out of its shell less than 24 hours later! Usually there are two full days between the eggs hatching. We were all worried however that almost three days later the third and final egg was very much intact.

Our fears were thankfully all in vain. Late last night we noticed a small hole in the remaining egg and by early this morning the feisty little chick had managed to escape his shell fully and by 8 o' clock was feeding with its siblings, wolfing down a fish breakfast as quick as he could!

A big thank you to staff, volunteers and all that have helped us get this far this year, let's hope that all three chicks survive and fledge this time, that would be a first for this Glaslyn pair in their fifth year of breeding here. 

Great news! The first of the 2008 Glaslyn chicks hatched this morning, just a few hours ago. The youngster began to break through the shell at 6:45am and took around an hour or so to fully emerge.

Our first full views from the next-cam were of a pink, goosepimply body flopping around.

In fact, as you can see from the image, it is pretty peculiar looking and certainly wouldn't win any 'bonny baby' awards - but we love it all the same. For now, it is completely helpless and still sort of egg-shaped, but it won't take too long for it to develop a little more.

Later today it's eyes should open and we should see the parents give a first feed. Visitors today and over the weekend should be in for a real treat. Not least because we expect the second chick to hatch in the next couple of days. Perhaps next time it will happen when we have visitors in the centre watching it live!

The female has been up and down all morning, sitting and standing, then turning around a few degrees to sit and stand facing in another direction. She is still incubating the remaining two eggs, and so the new chick is finding itself back underneath her again for much of the time. It will need to be kept warm and protected as it gets used to being exposed to the outside World.

The male was sat on the nest for the first parts of hatching, but perhaps the intensity of it all became too much, because he retired to a nearby tree for a little alone-time after around half an hour.

So, chick number one has joined us. We can look forward to a great few months of watching this little one develop. The ultimate success stage will come in mid-July when it takes its first flight from the nest and begins to become independent. How exciting!

With just a handful of days left before we expect the first chick to emerge in the Glaslyn nest, things are getting pretty exciting up here. 

Egg number one is expected to break open around the middle to end of next week.  From then on the two adults will really have to get busy.  The male will be bringing back plenty of fish so that his mate can feed the little one, whilst the female continues to incubate the remaining eggs.  The eggs will hatch in the order they were laid, a couple of days apart.

Hormonally, the female is aware that hatching is getting close.  Yesterday, she placed a piece of fish over the eggs, as if making the association beween her food and the eggs. She did this in the days prioir to hatching last year too.  She knows that pretty soon feeding the brood will be her number one priority.

Whilst the female takes on all of the incubation during the night, the male is once again playing a very active role in domestic responsibilities and takes over incubating for about half the time during daylight hours.  They have quite an established shift pattern and usually one bird will do a couple of hours on the eggs before the other will take over. 

Actually the male is a less efficient incubator than the female.  Perhaps it is because he is slightly smaller, so has less body heat and isn't able to quite cover the eggs fully.  Or, maybe it is because he does not have the brood patch of the female (this is a balder patch of feathers on the front where she can nuzzle the eggs close to her skin and ensure they gat the most body heat from her).  However, since the weather up here the last couple of days has been absolutely scorchio, the male has taken the chance to do more daytime incubation than ever, knowing that his less efficient incubating will be balanced out by the warm air temperature.

We still have a third osprey in the area.  A glut of visitors arrived just after 10am yesterday telling us they had seen an osprey fishing over the Dwyryd estuary.  We knew it couldn't be one of ours, as both our birds had been on, or within sight of, the nest all morning.  In fact the male had just brought back the biggest branch ever to add to the nest, and had inadvertently walloped his missus with it on delivery (we know he has a clumsy streak after his antics of previous years, we also know he has an obsession with bringing back inappropriately huge chunks of nesting material). 

So, this other osprey.  Male or female?  Well, we don't know.  No-one got a close enough look to tell.  But it seems unlikely that this osprey is still on migration - it's very late in the season now.  Could it be scouting its own breeding territory?  Could it even be one of the Glaslyn youngsters from 2005 or 2006?  We may find out more as the season goes on...

Another female osprey has been making regular visits around the Glaslyn site.  She is distinctive because one of her primary feathers on her right wing is missing.  She's probably going through a moult at the moment, which would explain the missing feather.  Birds of prey do moult once a year, and usually feather by feather, so that it doesn't affect their ability to fly.

Far from being sent off with a flea in her ear, the relationship between the Glaslyn pair and this new missy, seems quite amicable.  Almost chummy in fact.  A few days ago the Glalsyn male and the new girl were spotted flying off southwards together over Llyn Mair (that's Lake Mary in English).  What will his missus think?!

The three eggs - a fourth never emerged despite all the frantic last minute mating - are being incubated nicely in the nest.  Time is flying by.  We are almost into May already, and it's just under 3 weeks until we expect the first egg to hatch. 

Meanwhile, down on the ground, naturalist and broadcaster Iolo Williams spent the day here yesterday filming for a new series.  He has been a great supporter of the osprey site and it's always good to have him around and chatting with the visitors.  More than 5000 people have already visited us so far this season.

For the first time this year, we have residential volunteers working with us at the osprey site.   We have a caravan on the Aberdunant caravan park where volunteers stay for 1 or 2 weeks at a time and have had some great helpers already.  We're currently being assisted by Anne and Margaret who have got stuck in helping visitors and giving us a hand at the protection site - thanks girls!  The residential volunteering scheme is fully booked up for this year, but if you would like to find out more about how to book for next year, or peruse the other residential schemes available then visit www.rspb.org.uk/volunteering

Three perfect little osprey eggs are now snuggled up in the Glaslyn nest.  The female has been incredibly busy since our last blog entry.  She laid her second egg on Friday (11 April) at around 4.15pm and a third on Monday (14 April) at 12.15pm.  All of her eggs have emerged in the afternoon within just a few hours of each other, which is becoming the signature-style of this female - she was quite clockwork in her delivery last year too.

The interesting thing about the third egg is the peculiar patterning.  Whilst the other two have an even splattering of red and cream colouring, the mottling on this third egg is much more distinctive. One half is almost entirely cream in colour and the other almost entirely red.  It does look unusual alongside the others.  It also means that we will be able to identify this egg quite easily now on the nest-cam, whereas the other two look the same.  We should be able to lift a still image from our nest-cam to show you soon. 

You would think that the pair would be satisfied with three eggs to care for, but since the third laying they have been busying themselves by mating again.  It is possible that the female will lay a fourth.  This is more common among experienced birds, and ours are in their fifth successive season now, so a fourth egg is not out of the question.  We will let you know...

Most days we have seen a third osprey in the area.  This happened last year too - a third bird that hadn't managed to hook up with a partner kept showing up and trying to cause a bit of fuss.  Whether this mischievous little attention-seeker is the same as last year is impossible to tell.  There could even be more than one bird, but we never see more than one at a time.  Perhaps these birds are still in the final stages of migration to their breeding areas.

The intruder osprey that appeared yesterday must have been a male, as he was displaying over the nest trying to impress the female whilst the Glaslyn male was on a fishing trip.  He disappeared before the Glaslyn male returned but showed up again whilst the female was eating her fish on a nearby feeding tree.  The Glaslyn male had taken over incubation duties while the missus ate and could not leave the eggs to see this intruder off, so the female (and her fish) went up to chase the cheeky chap away.  Job done she returned to stuffing her face in the tree, what a woman!  The Glaslyn female showed herself to be a fiesty contender last year, fiercely protective of her brood, so it's good to see she's back on top form.

The Glaslyn female has laid her first egg of the season!  It happened at 17:16 yesterday teatime.  It was getting towards the end of the day, so only a handful of visitors were here to witness it live on the nest-cam.

The female was visibly agitated and kept getting up and down, engaging in displacement activity and generally fussing about the nest.  Eventually, she sat back down and flattened herself down across the nest.  We know this 'pancake' approach well enough by now.  A little shiver along her flattened back was the only outward sign of anything happening below, but seconds later she stood up to have a look and we saw the egg for ourselves. 

This image was captured from the nest-cam just seconds after laying, as she sits up to have a look at what's underneath her. She looks ever so slightly dazed - but who wouldn't - and you can see the egg quite clearly here, with maroon and cream mottling.

The male had been on the nest the whole time, watching her, but as soon as the egg was revealed, he bounded over for a closer look, literally sticking his beak into the action.  He got the brush off from 'mummy' who nudged him away but less than a minute later they were both stood up rubbing beaks, sharing a tender little moment together.  Well it certainly looked that way to us soft-hearted romantics on the ground.

This little egg will be the focus of the female's attention for the next 37 days, as she dedcates herself to incubating.  She'll spend most of her time sitting on top of it - and any other eggs that emerge over the coming days. We would expect another one to appear tomorrow (Thursday) and possibly a third over the weekend.

There's no danger of the egg being crushed, she's very gentle with it.  The feathers at the base of her chest are a little thinner than elsewhere on her body, allowing eggs to nestle in and be closer to her skin, so that they get more body heat.  Whilst the egg has been inside her, its temperature has been very consistent and efficiently regulated, so during these first few days after laying, it's vital that she maintains a regular temperature for the egg.

It will be a pretty idle 5 weeks for the female, apart from a few short flights to stretch her wings she will be sat on the nest the whole time.  She will also get up for short intervals to nudge the egg over so that her heat gets distributed evenly.

So, one egg is safely out and there may well be more to come.  Keep checking for news of more eggs over the next few days.  Whilst the female is potentially laying a third egg over the weekend, I will be running the London Marathon to raise money for the RSPB's Save the Sumatran Rainforest campaign.  In the time it takes me to complete the run, around 6000 hectares of the World's forests will have been destroyed.  If you want to help, please visit www.justgiving.com/wendyjohnson Many thanks!