In a flap

They may still be around a week or so from fledging, but that hasn't stopped the two Glaslyn youngsters from been getting their first tastes of being airborne over the last week - albeit for just a few seconds. Their frenzied flapping has been rewarded with a few moments of mid-air suspension over the nest, before flopping back down again.

It's a very exciting time in the visitor centre. Quite often, the visitors watching the screens are out of their seats and squealing 'it's going to go!' Not quite yet, but this behaviour is a good start and an important phase to go through whilst they prepare for the big take off. We are expecting to see a first flight from one of them fairly soon, maybe over the coming weekend. The youngsters have also been feeding themselves straight from the fish, not every time but quite regularly. Again, this is consistent with the behaviour of chicks that are very close to fledging.

Wind is a problem at the moment - no, not a bad case of the burps! - The blustery weather that has been up here of late means that the chicks are more inclined to snuggle down into the nest in search of shelter than bounce around on the edge preparing for flight - and quite right too! No doubt, when the time comes there will be no stopping them, wind or no wind. In fact, all four birds have been coping admirably with some of the worst weather they have had to experience.

Though we have no way of conclusively telling the sex of the chicks, we have reason to believe that there may be one boy and one girl. They are both full size now and we can get a fantastic view of them on the nest-cam so it's possible to see that one chick (with the YB ring) is clearly bigger with more brown markings, and was heavier when the pair were weighed at the ringing session.

This suggests the chick is a female. The other (with the YA ring) is smaller, lighter and much paler, which is more typical of a male. At this stage in their development, the fact that one is a couple of days older than the other would not explain such clear size differences, so we are confident, but not sure, that a boy and girl is what we have up there.

Over the weekend, we saw the female regurgitate a pellet. Pellets are made up of the indigestible bits of the meal. This would be the bones from the fish in the osprey's case, but in other birds of prey it would include fur and feathers etc. It is not unknown for ospreys to do this but it is quite rare so we were quite lucky to see it.

The third osprey has been around over the last three days or so and a couple of buzzards have seen flying over the nest too. Now that the chicks are at such an advanced stage in their development, the parent birds will often both go up off the nest to see off other birds.  They are not so anxious about leaving their young alone for a short while now.

The coming weekend promises to be a great one for two reasons. Firstly, visitors are in with a very good chance of seeing the first flights of the chicks! And, secondly, we have another community weekend with stalls of local produce for sale, displays of photographs and artwork by local people, bird safari sessions, refreshments, face painting and much more. It's all completely free of charge and open to all from 10 am until 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday, so please come along and say hello, we will be delighted to see you.