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Sad news from the Glaslyn osprey nest - one of the chicks died in the nest yesterday. It's impossible to say which one, all three youngsters had been feeding at around 10 am and settled down for a snooze afterwards. At around 12 noon it became clear something was wrong. There was no movement from one of the chicks, even when the female nudged and pushed it, so it must have died in its sleep.

It's upsetting news, particularly as the family had been having such a smooth and uncomplicated season. The atmosphere was pretty subdued yesterday among visitors, staff and volunteers. After following the progress of the birds from the first sighting of the male back in March, to egg laying and hatching it's a real blow to everyone and relaying the news to the 700 visitors during the day was certainly heartbreaking work.

The first thing people asked was 'why did it die?' but the honest answer is we really don't know - these things do happen unfortunately. It brings back memories of last year, when one of the three chicks died just prior to fledging.

The dead chick is still in the nest. We don't really know what will happen to it but last year the female pushed the dead one out three or four days later, so we will wait and see.

The good news is that we still have two wonderful healthy chicks up there. There has been no sign of upset or disturbance among them, they have been as chirping and lively as normal and their appetites have certainly not been affected. The male brought back a huge mullet yesterday afternoon, which they gobbled down between them and this morning they had already eaten by 8 am.

It's only just two weeks since the first of the chicks hatched but they are growing up already! They have lost their white downy covering now. Their dark skin is showing through, with the beginnings of proper feathers developing. Only the youngest is still clinging on to bits of fuzz, with a little white head - this will probably be gone too by tomorrow though, and it will be dark all over like the others.

They look very different to when they first hatched - like little dinosaurs - and are around the same size as a thrush now. All of this development must be down to a hearty diet of fish, fish and…more fish! They have been eating loads, thanks to their committed Dad and his regular deliveries to the nest.

Yesterday morning, he brought a big sea trout back. He and his mate grappled around with it for a few moments, before she took it off him. Fish doesn't come any fresher than this, it was still thrashing around in her talons! She ate the head herself, which is a delicacy usually reserved for the male. The youngest chick was raring to go with a fiesty few pecks at bits of the fish, trying to get food for itself rather than wait to be fed by Mum and Dad.

Around 3300 people came to visit over the three days of the bank holiday weekend and our first community weekend of the season. At one point on Saturday morning, it looked as though the sand martins were trying to out number the visitors with a hundred or so flying close to the site. In fact we had a full suite of hirundines that day with swifts, swallows, house martins and sand martins all putting in an appearance.

Week one of chick watch has been fantastic, we've had a great time and the three little ones have been doing a marvellous job of entertaining us.

The youngest one is not much smaller than the other two but is a little slower at getting food. It may need just a little time to gain in confidence and then it will join in the battle of the beaks with the others, pushing and shoving to be first! Slow it may be, but it still gets a hefty amount of food. They all do.

In fact, the chick that seems to be the most dominant in the nest (probably the eldest) ate so much on Wednesday that we could see its crop (the soft pouch on its chest) visibly swelling and swelling until it looked fit to burst! A first experience of having eaten too much and it didn't look comfortable.

The chick did the only thing it could do in the circumstances and setled down for a little snooze. Sleeping it off seemed to do the trick and when more food was brought a few hours later it was grappling for more.

At first, when the chicks were only a day or two old, the adult female would offer up food and then eat it herself if the chicks didn't take it straight away - now she has gone to the other extreme, desperately trying to stuff chunks of fish into unwilling beaks this morning.

The female is still spending time sat on them, though as they get bigger and more wriggly, she fidgets more. When they get too big to sit on, she will sit very close to them 'mantling' - that means using her body and wings as a shield to try and protect them from the weather, not just wind and rain but the strong sun too. As you can image, perched high up in a tree top, there is no escape from the blistering heat of the sun on a hot day.

We witnessed our first fight this morning. The eldest two chicks were really going for one another, beaks snapping and head butting. It's a measure of how much they've physically developed in the last few days that they are now able to control their bodies well enough to fight with each other! It's harmless enough really, just an example of competitiveness amongst siblings. It's bound to happen, in the intimacy of an osprey nest there is no respite from each other's company.

No such squabbling down on the ground. We are all gearing up for our first community weekend for the season - 26, 27 and 28 May from 10am until 6pm. Come along and see us if you can, it should be great fun.

The Glaslyn osprey nest is now home to three beautiful downy white chicks. The final egg hatched on Sunday morning to the applause, whoops and cheers of 30 or more visitors in the centre. The egg had broken fairly neatly and the domes of both ends, with a clear, sticky coating inside could clearly be seen.

The little chick was wriggling in the bottom of the nest, blissfully unaware of all the nervous energy that had been focused on it from down on the ground over the last 6 weeks. The egg tooth that the chick used to chip its way out of the shell has done its job now and is no longer needed. It will grow out gradually over the coming days. Indeed, it's no longer possible to make out an egg tooth on either of the two older chicks.

Grow they most certainly will, especially with the amount of food that 'Dad' is bringing back. Since the third chick arrived, his instinct to provide has gone into overdrive and he has delivered a glut of fish to the nest. At one point, he was over one side of the nest feeding the chicks with rainbow trout whilst his partner was over the other side, feeding them a piece of mullet left over from earlier in the day.

We haven't seen them do this feeding double act before - normally we would expect only the female to be feeding them at this early stage. The male is as keen as mustard though and even brought the rainbow trout straight to the nest without first sitting on a nearby tree to remove and eat the head - he's Super-Dad.

In the next week or so, the chicks will start to lose the white bristly down that they have, with lots of white skin showing through, and will start to grow proper feathers. They will keep these feathers until they moult next year. We have seen a few stray primary adult feathers in the nest over the last week or so. This is probably a sign of the adult female moulting and growing new ones. This happens a feather or two at a time but now is a particularly good time for her to do this, as she isn't flying much at the moment and she will need to be at her peak by the time she migrates back to Afirca, probably in early August.

Speaking of flying, the chicks are having an easy time lolling around at the moment but all of their growing and learning over the next 8 weeks will be building up to the moment when they waddle to the edge of the nest and plunge off to take their first flights. But, it's way too soon to think of that yet. Let's just enjoy them for the moment, whilst they're still tiny little fluff-balls - they don't stay little for long...

Over the coming bank holiday (26, 27 and 28 May), we are holding a community weekend at the osprey viewing site. There will be stalls with local crafts and produce on sale, a chance to meet local organisations, or take part in competitions and children's activities. Oh yes, and see the ospreys of course!

Just like on any other day here at the viewing centre, it's completely free of charge and will be a great chance to see the newly complete osprey family. Looking forward to seeing you.

Thirty-six hours after it's older sibling hatched, chick number two broke out as well.  At 11am yesterday morning, the female got up for a stretch and, behold, there was not just one fluffy body underneath her but two!  As you can imagine, the 20 or so people gathered around the screens went wild!  It was a great moment.  The female had been wriggling and wriggling since around half past ten, so things must have been going on below for half an hour or so.  With only one and a half days difference in ages, there is very little to choose between the two, they both look exactly the same.  The only slight apparent difference yesterday was that the egg tooth was a little sharper and more prominent on one beak than the other (we really can see them in such detail!), so we assume that was the newest of the two.  The second chick experienced its first feed at around 2pm yesterday afternoon and has had several since.  It is clear when feeding that one chick is just a little more clued up than the other.  It turns its head in the right direction and seems a bit more in control - probably the elder of the two.  The female is very careful and tender when feeding them.  She offers up tiny fragments of fish to whiever beak is available, but she doesn't hang around - if neither beak takes it, she just swallows it down herself!  The chicks are propping themselves up on their tiny little wings when they feed, reaching up as high as possible.  Their heads look huge compared to their skinny little necks and they have not yet got the muscles or experience to know how to control their heads properly - they flop around like unruly puppets sometimes.  In these very first days though, they spend much of the time snug and warm under their mother, just like the last 6 weeks when they have been in the eggs.

Egg number three is still snug and content in the nest.  If it follows the pattern of the others then it may hatch this evening.  However, even inside the egg, the chick is likely to be aware of the increased activity in the nest - more movement and sounds around it - and may want to break out sooner rather than later to join in the chick jamboree - could we have a full house by the end of the day?

 

We have a chick!  It hatched at the rather unsociable time of 11:17pm last night, so none of the visitors got to see the great event, but it was watched on the night camera by members of the 24-hour protection team. 

The female is still incubating the remaining two eggs but, when she gets up to turn them and stretch her legs, we can zoom in on the chick and see it in all its fluffy glory.  It is almost pure white but already the distinctive dark eye stripe, which is so characteristic of ospreys, is visible.

The chick had its first feed at 10am this morning, watched by the first visitors that had begun to arrive for the day.  It was only a little feed, consisting of a few morsels of fish but there have been a further two feeds throughout today.  The male, already aware that he has more mouths to feed, had brought back two by mid-afternoon and flew right over the viewing site at around 4pm, possibly going out for more.  As well as hungry chicks to keep sustained, the adults' food requirements will also increase as they use up energy caring for their new arrivals.

We have had masses of people here today checking out the little one and we expect even more over the weekend, as we are hoping for a second little beak to emerge on Saturday.  Let's hope the next is more considerate of its viewing public and comes out when we are all gathered around the screens in the visitor centre.

 

 

 

 

It's exactly 37 days today since the first egg was laid and we are expecting a chick to emerge from it at any moment.  Both adult birds have been very agitated all day and it's clear that something is afoot.  When the male brought a sea trout back at around 11:30am this morning both birds had a nibble at it on the nest - which is most peculiar, they usually prefer to retire to a tree before they tuck in.  Neither of them want to be away from the nest, even for short amounts of time, as the big moment is imminent.  The female, possibly in a frenzy of pre-hatching madness, has been a littl odd today.  Not content with eating the sea trout that her mate brought back, she flopped it on top of the eggs and has since been sitting on both trout and eggs!  It's not really clear why.  The only thing that we can think of is that she's aware that she will have a chick to take care of very soon and wants to be prepared.  She will probably try and feed the chick more or less straight away and perhaps she has put that fish aside for its first meal.  Hope the chick doesn't take too long to arrive or things could get quite whiffy up there. 

 

 

With hatching just days away, the excitement around the viewing site is reaching fever pitch.  Chick number one is expected to put in an appearance in the middle of next week, so all eyes will be fixed on the screen in the visitor centre from Wednesday, as we all await a first glimpse of the fluffy one.  The female osprey will be the first to sense that something is going on, she will be aware of extra movement inside the egg and tapping sounds as the chick chips away at the inside of the shell with its 'egg tooth' - a special little tool on top of the beak for breaking through the egg with.  The female will probably keep getting up off the eggs to check on progress, as it could take half an hour or so for the chick to fully emerge.  

As we enter the final week of incubation, it has to be noted once more just how active a role the male has taken this year in nurturing the eggs himself.  Usually it is estimated that the female will take on more than 80% of the incubation duties, with the male taking over less than 20% of the time, but this male has done over and above his share this year, the pair work wonderfully together.

Don't forget, the Glaslyn ospreys will be featured on Iolo's Welsh Safari on BBC One Wales on Monday night (14th) at 7:30pm.    

 

We have captured some jaw-dropping footage of the female osprey from the nest-cam this weekend - some of the best footage we have ever seen here.

On Sunday morning, at around 10.30 am a big clump of visitors were huddling inside the centre, as the weather wasn't great. The male had brought a fish back and the female had taken it just a few feet away and was sat on the nest tree eating it - on a thick branch that grows off the main trunk behind the nest-camera. With a little experimental manoeuvring on our remote control, we managed to spin the nest-cam round 180° and focus in on her as she ate - fantastic! Every feather and talon was as clear as if we had been sat in the tree with her.

As she ripped into the bright red flesh of the rainbow trout the whole visitor centre was mesmerised. About two-thirds of the way through the fish, she jiggled it around in her talons to try and get at the flesh on the tail end but it slipped from her grasp and plummeted to the floor. Everyone expected her to go after it but she didn't worry herself - there is plenty more where that came from thanks to her mate, who brings back an endless supply of food.

The feeding footage was so good that we showed the recording to visitors throughout the day, who were all suitably thunderstruck - it certainly more original bank holiday viewing that the usual James Bond film.

The female brought a huge branch of sycamore to the nest last week - another addition to their ever-growing home. They do seem to like bringing back green, living branches. Sometimes they just fly at a tree, grab hold of a branch and wrench it right off. They have been bringing branches of pine back quite regularly - a natural air-freshener for the home perhaps.

It can be quite a blustery spot here on the flood plain. The nest itself is particularly exposed to the elements and we can often see the osprey's feathers being blown around in every direction. On the whole though, we have had a glut of warm and peaceful days since the eggs were laid. This consistent weather with only minor variations in temperature helps the incubation process go smoothly, so there shouldn't be any surprises. Hatching is predicted to begin in 8 days time - watch this space.

The battle of the birds has been ongoing all week, as the osprey pair continue to fend off challenges from other species. On Tuesday morning at about 7:30am, before the day's visitors arrived, a female Goshawk plunged high out of the sky from the right of the nest. She flew like a jet-fighter towards the female osprey, who was also up in the air at the time having a little fly around as the male incubated the eggs. The goshawk pulled out of the dive at the last minute, avoiding a collision by inches. The female osprey defended her territory well, as she has done against every other bird that has looked like posing a threat to her family. It didn't take long to see the goshawk off. A few moments later, it made a hasty retreat back towards Moel Ddu, and has not been seen since.

It's almost as if all the local resident birds are testing the osprey pair out to see how sharp they are and whether there are any holes in their defence strategy. There aren't of course. This pair are young enough to respond energetically but experienced enough to know that potential threats are all around.

One mystery that had been puzzling us has been solved this week. You may remember that a couple of weeks back, we were baffled by the bizarre 'winking' that the ospreys have been doing whilst sat on the nest. By zooming in on the birds, we could see that they were in the habit of closing one eye as they sat. They are still doing it and it really looks quite comical - many visitors had commented on it. Well, a group of visiting students and an ecology expert from Bangor University happened to stop by as part of a field trip this week and think they have the answer. It is likely that this is the osprey's way of snoozing. Ospreys, like most birds, don't sleep in the same way that humans do. Instead, they will shut down one side of the brain at a time to rest it, closing one eye as they do so - literally getting a few winks of sleep. The other side of their brain, meanwhile, is alert and wide awake.

An extreme example of peculiar sleeping habits among the bird world occurs in swifts, which sleep whilst flying - just grabbing a few moments at a time! Actually, swifts are supreme flyers and do almost everything else in the air too including mating and eating. In fact, fledgling swifts spend the first few years of their lives entirely in the air without landing at all. This is a great time of year for swift spotting as these birds are just starting to return to the UK for the breeding season. You are likely to see them flying high in the air, often in excited screaming groups - look out for their sooty brown colour, long wings and short, forked tail. They have not been seen at the Glaslyn osprey site yet but we should have a handful or so over the next couple of weeks. Our friends in the RSPB reserves at Conwy and Ynys-hir tell us that they have a few swifts already.

After a close encounter with an 'intruder' osprey last Tuesday, the Glaslyn female instigated a neighbourhood watch vigil from her nest and was taking no prisoners. She was in a foul mood on Friday, and more aggressive than usual, chasing off anything that came by including a couple of crows and a male peregrine that has a nest in the area. The poor peregrine was just passing, minding his own business, but she shot up off her perch and warned it away.

Meanwhile, the male osprey was taking his fatherly duties seriously and spending some quality time sat on the eggs. He has been doing it more this year than in previous years. Perhaps he has gained more confidence as a father now and feels comfortable incubating. He is also more familiar with the surrounding area so he knows where to go for the best fish, which means hunting trips are more concise and he has more time for doing his share at the nest - a thoroughly modern male!

He has not lost his taste for exploration though and flew off in a different direction to usual on Saturday afternoon. He was heading north west toward Llyn y Adair, and has only been seen heading there once or twice over the years. It was a relatively unfamiliar journey but it paid off and he came back within half an hour with a brown trout clasped in his talons.

It's been a lazy, sunny day today, if a little breezy. As I write, the female is sat on the eggs and the male is perched on the nest tree, above the camera. He must be stretching his legs, as he has been on the eggs more than his mate today. She has been perched in a fir tree to the left of the nest for much of the day - a tree that they pair use quite often for perching and feeding in.

When all the visitors have left and night falls, a whole new world of wildlife comes alive. The 24-hour protection team have been lucky enough to see badgers on their late night patrols. The badgers come scratching across the field at dusk looking for food. They may look cute and cuddly as they snuffle around but have fearsome teeth and claws and would put up a vicious fight if provoked.

We are now halfway through the incubation period, which means we can expect our first chick in around two-and-a-half weeks from now. The textbook incubation period for an osprey egg is 37 days, so if we count from Easter Monday when the first egg was laid, we reach Wednesday 16 May. Could this be the golden date? History would suggest so, as this pair have been spot on in previous years. Circle the date on your calendar and keep checking this diary to find out...

The third osprey was seen once again yesterday. It seems to be an early riser, as it was around 8am when it passed over the nest site, clutching a fish. The Glaslyn pair showed little interest. Their feathers won't be ruffled by the parade of some puny fish overhead - especially not when the Glaslyn male has such a skill for catching whoppers. At around 3pm yesterday he brought a big fish - around one foot long - into the nest. We often see him bringing mullet back but a couple of keen fishermen that were in the visitor centre at the time studied the screen and informed us that this was a sea bass, which he must have caught in the Cob in Porthmadog.

As usual, he had already eaten the head. Sometimes it looks as though he is a reluctant provider, because he seems to hang on to the fish and not want to give it up. Really it is only because he occasionally has trouble pulling his big talons out from the flesh and it can take a few moments to make the hand over to his mate. Ospreys have long arched claws which are brilliant at grasping fish when he emerges from the water with it slippery wet and thrashing around but do make it tricky to let go when the time comes.

We had fantastic views of a female peregrine on Tuesday afternoon. She was hovering over the field about 50 yards away from the hide. Peregrines are amazingly fast hunters and can reach speeds of up to 112 mph on the stoop (dive) when they hunt. She made a couple of dives to the ground, which were pretty spectacular and she was there for a good ten minutes but didn't seem to catch anything. Our 'Aren't birds brilliant!' comrades in south Wales are busy showing visitors the nesting peregrines in the Dare Valley Country Park in Aberdare and on the clock tower of City Hall, right in the middle of Cardiff city centre! Follow the Aren't birds brilliant! Link on the right of this page to find out how to visit these other viewing schemes.

On Tuesday we heard the first cuckoos of the season - a little later than elswhere perhaps but very special and now we regularly hear three or four of them in the woods, mostly in the morning and then late afternoon. A true sign of spring!

Help the Glaslyn ospreys

Lots of people coming to see the ospreys are so impressed that they want to support the project and the other important work that the RSPB carries out in Wales and across the globe. We couldn't do any of it without the support of our RSPB members. It costs as little as £2.67 per month to join but makes a huge difference. If you would like to join or find out more about our membership, please contact Ellen Perry (029) 2035 3045 ellen.perry@rspb.org.uk

Or, why not raise money to help projects like the Glaslyn ospreys? You could become one of our wonderful team of fundraising volunteers across Wales and it can take just half an hour a month. For more information, please contact Nick Bates (029) 2035 3009 nick.bates@rspb.org.uk

The Glaslyn osprey pair were called on early yesterday morning and it wasn't a particularly welcome visitor. A third osprey made it's appearance at 6:40 am to mix things up a bit. It flew over the nest and the female shot up off the eggs, calling the whole time, probably warning this intruder to back off. She is as fiercely protective of her family as any mother and made a formidable opponent in flight, with her legs dangling down below.

The male got involved too and at one point, all three birds were in the air together calling and flying close to each other - the intruder got within a foot or two of the nest but the Glaslyn pair performed wonderfully together and managed to ward it off. The altercation didn't actually get physical but it was a tense ten minutes. Towards the end, the female went back to sit on the eggs and the male escorted his visitor off the premises - they flew off north together into the early morning mist. When the male came back at around 8am he had a fish with him, so had obviously combined his territory protection flight with a spot of fishing - resourceful chap! At first, the female didn't seem to want to eat, she could have been feeling a bit churned up from the morning's upset, but eventually she took it off to a feeding tree and had a nibble.

So who was the guest osprey and what was it doing? It could be looking towards mating and trying to get into the territory. From the views we got at the protection site, it was hard to identify as male or female. When Iolo Williams turned up later to film for his new series of Iolo's Welsh Safari, he told visitors that ospreys often try and interfere with each other and each other's nests. We will wait and see if it puts in another appearance. By the way, Iolo spent quite a bit of time filming with us - you can catch the piece on Iolo's Welsh Safari on BBC One Wales, Monday 14 May at 7:30pm.

As for this morning, well, it's a good job the osprey nest is so high up, they are about the only ones around here not getting their feet wet at the moment. After pelting rain all day yesterday and through the night, the river is high and raging and the ground is sodden.

That's the peril of having a viewing site on the flood plain. We are able to use the nest cameras to zoom in and see the bird's efficient waterproof plumage in action. The rain is just running in rivulets off their backs. Down on the ground it is flowing rather less glamorously down the tops of our wellies.

The pair's ongoing attempts to build up the nest caused a bit of drama yesterday. Always eager to please, the male has been bringing back nesting material to make the nest more secure, comfortable and chick-friendly. Somewhat misguidedly, he is of the opinion that if a big stick is good then an even bigger stick must be better.

That is how he came to land on the nest with a three foot long branch yeterday morning. Not content with dropping it in gently into the nest, he plunged in with a triumphant 'look what I've found' approach and deposited himself and the stick on his partner's head, pinning her head to the floor of the nest.

It looked pretty uncomfortable to say the least and it was ten seconds or more until he moved. In the visitor centre we were yelling at the screen for him to get off, fearing that he might have hurt his mate. Ospreys are made of strong stuff though and she seemed no worse for wear when he got off - a little disgruntled perhaps but she accepted the 'gift' and made room for it in the nest.

He did this last year too, almost knocking her clean out of the nest by swinging around too quickly with a branch in his beak. For all his agility and skillfulness, he is still capable of the odd 'Frank Spencer' moment.

Spring is a great time of year to get outdoors.  There's always a flurry of wildlife activity as the breeding season gets underway. There are certainly lots of other birds to see as well as the ospreys up here, as you'll know if you've already been to visit us. The red kite has been seen several times flying around over the glaslyn. It is always alone, and usually quite high up in the air. We have seen a handful of red-breasted mergansers, half a dozen curlews demostrating their melancholic call, and several lapwings flying around, roughly half a mile from the viewing hide - they have such a unique and interesting flying style. 

On a smaller (but no less important) scale, the feeders hanging in our mini wildlife garden have been attracting long-tailed tits and a variety of finches, entertaining people as they eat their picnics in the lovely sunshine we've been having this week.

The male has been taking it easy to an extent over the last few days and has not been fishing very much - both their energy needs are very small right now. The female's day is mostly taken up with sitting on the nest perforimg her role as a living egg-cosy. On the occasions when she does feel peckish and her mate brings back a fish, she will take it off to a nearby feeding tree (the male will take over the egg-sitting duties whilst she's away) pick at it awhile, have a little fly around to stretch her wings, and maybe do a little poo, then back to the nest to resume sitting.

It's not a strenuous life really. Similarly, the male isn't too hungry himself either, as he spends lots of time lounging around the place. Of course, all that is bound to change when the eggs hatch and they have three hungry chicks to feed, so they should try and make the most of their leisure time whilst they still can.

The male is bringing back plenty of sticks, moss and clods of earth to build up the nest with. They will add to the nest in this way throughout the season, as they did last year. In this warm weather, the clods dry out quite quickly and must get scratchy and uncomfortable, so to combat that, the female tears at and teases them to break the earth down into softer, powdery material.

Naturally, when visitors come along to the viewing site to see the birds for themselves, they want to know which is the male and which is the female. Once you know how to tell them apart, there really is no way of getting them mixed up, as they have quite pronounced differences. For one thing, she is visibly bigger - that is to say, a couple of inches longer and much broader - she makes him look quite slight by comparison. Also, female ospreys have a kind of speckly brown necklace around their breast, whilst males are much whiter.

In the Glaslyn pair, this is particularly clear, the female's necklace is really deeply dark and chocolatey, whilst the male's breast is washing powder white - he fairly gleams like a beacon when he is facing the camera head on.