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Glaslyn osprey diary

Follow the fortunes of a pair of ospreys breeding near Porthmadog in north Wales.
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  • Glaslyn osprey diary

    Big breakfasts = big chicks

    Posted over 6 years ago
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    The two osprey chicks are flourishing and getting bigger by the day. They really do like their big breakfasts and at 8am yesterday morning they were just polishing off the last of a sea mullet that had been brought to the nest early by the male.

    They are showing signs of wanting to feed themselves - pecking little bits off the fish when they can sneak a cheeky nibble - though they are still fed by the parent birds in the main and will be for some weeks to come.

    They are really starting to explore the nest and move around more now. One chick was sat near to the edge yesterday, peering around inquisitively. Thankfully, it wasn't near enough to the edge to topple over, which is just as well because they won't be ready to fly until early July. Their World at the moment only consists of their parents, the nest and, of course, FOOD - lots of it!  

    They are certainly not babies anymore - their talons look much more developed, they are starting to grow proper feathers on their heads now and we can even see the vibrant orange of their eyes quite clearly on the viewing screen. The eyes will remain orange for some time before changing to the piercing yellow of adult ospreys.

    The dead chick was ejected from the nest at the start of the week. It had been there late on Monday night, but was gone by 7am on Tuesday morning. The female is likely to have pushed it over the side during the night. 
  • Glaslyn osprey diary

    Sad news

    Posted over 6 years ago
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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.
  • Glaslyn osprey diary

    Growing fast

    Posted over 6 years ago
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    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.
  • Glaslyn osprey diary

    battle of the beaks

    Posted over 6 years ago
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    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.
  • Glaslyn osprey diary

    A full house - chick three joins us!

    Posted over 6 years ago
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    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.

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