Three years ago, we had a vision at Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust. To build something insanely great on our Cors Dyfi reserve where the Dyfi Osprey Project is situated.

A platform for people and wildlife to connect with each other - a place like no other you can visit. To see, hear and experience wildlife around us like we never have before, high up with an incredible vista all around us - a full 360° panoramic vista. A place to learn about the living world around us using new technologies, new ideas and new concepts. Learning for families, for children, for everyone.

The 360 Observatory

Three years down the line from those aspirations and dreams in the summer of 2010, we are nearing the end of building the 360 Observatory. Those ideas have changed from sketches and thoughts and are becoming reality. Just over a year ago we learnt that we had been successful in our funding applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund’s Communities and Nature program. At the time, I wrote two blogs about the 360 project  - here they are, one and two.

So, a year on, how much has been achieved? This is the third Observatory blog with 15 images of the progress so far. Before the photos, however, let’s remind ourselves of the 360 concept and the ethos behind the whole idea:

The 360 Concept

1. The view. This will be no bird hide on stilts. We will be able to see all the way around, a  360° panoramic view following Monty and Glesni as they fly around the reserve, the Dyfi River and Snowdonia National Park. We'll be able to see Monty fishing - how fabulous will that be! We'll be able to see other birds too - wildfowl, waders, marsh harriers, kites, owls, warblers, nightjars, migrating birds. And all with a 360° view with superb optical equipment and an actual person there to help you and explain what you are looking at and for. In Welsh and in English.

The upstairs area looking back over Cors Dyfi  and the Pumlumon mountains of mid Wales in the background, Ceredigion to the right and Snowdonia National Park to the left

2. It's not just about the ospreys and other birds. 360 means all of nature - the plants and animals that thrive on Cors Dyfi and beyond. It's important to understand that animals and plants don't live in isolation, they are all interconnected together with varying degrees of dependency on each other. At a great height looking around, we'll be able to focus on the ecology of the whole ecosystem around the Observatory in fantastic detail, helping us to ultimately understand it better.
 
3. Just like plants and animals don't live in isolation from each other, neither does wildlife exist as a single entity. We will focus on the geography and geology of the Dyfi, the history of this once vast ship building river, the culture and the Welsh language, education, children, communities, socio-economic benefits to the area and tourism. We will have more and greater ways of engaging with people, with better interpretation and technology at the forefront. We'll use cameras, microphones, new network technology, the internet, better imagery, and social media to connect people with the project the world over.

The business end - the Dyfi River is 500m beyond those windows and Monty and Glesni’s nest, just over 200m

The autumn and winter was a crazy time for us. We had to get all the architects, engineers, planners and many others together to get us to a contract ready phase for tendering and appointing a contractor. By early January 2013!

Our successful contractor was Thomas Taylor of ELM Wales based in mid Wales. Tom and his men have done an incredible job since they started just over eight months ago. Here are the 15 images then, starting where the construction commenced last February:

1. February 8th
By the end of the first week in February, we had surveyed the Observatory site for ecology and protected species. Once the green light was given, the site, approximately 20m x 10m was strimmed down. The weather was fine and mild which was brilliant. We had to get all of the 13 concrete-filled steel foundation pilings to the site, around 500m away from the current hide and deep into a peat bog, and into the ground by March 20th, before the ospreys returned.

2. February 9th
Once at the Observatory site, we had to make sure that we would build the Observatory pointing the right way! With tall trees in the way, and with the Trigonometry and Calculus lessons taken at school a distant memory, we had to come up with a more accurate way of working out which direction the osprey nest was from ground level.

With a very tall set of step-ladders and some string, a friendly local electrician and I managed to estimate the angles. (Caveat: Al Davies was 30 feet up the rickety step-ladder pointing at the nest in gusty winds, I had to stay on the ground and do the important string calculations).

The Observatory will rest on 13 steel piles, each 220mm wide and driven into the ground before filling them with tonnes of concrete. The problem was, being on a peat bog we didn’t know how far down we would have to push the piles into the ground to achieve a 10 tonne weight load each. We also had the problem of figuring out how to get the steel, concrete and power supply out to the site.

The huge Glulam (glue-laminated timber) beams that form the superstructure of the Observatory will ultimately rest on the 13 steel piles - like this:

3. February 20th
Nathan Hilton from Specialist Foundations Ltd worked with our contractor Tom and found an ingenious way of getting all the materials and equipment out to the Observatory site without harming the habitat, and themselves. 8 x 4 foot plywood sheets were placed on the ground and the piling machines slowly made their way over, very slowly. Once the power unit was safely over the last plywood sheet, it would be removed and placed at the front again. It took a whole day to travel the 530m to the site.

4. February 24th
The first pile is in! Now we knew how deep the steel tubes would have to be driven into the ground to achieve the required load bearing. Just over 18 metres - that’s 60 feet! The concrete was mixed on site by hand and carefully placed in the steep piles without contaminating the surrounding habitat.

5. March 19th
The fine weather didn’t last. In fact, we had the coldest March temperatures in over 50 years, which put many British species back a few weeks. A minimum temperature of 3.5°C is required to mix concrete to the grade that we required, and several days were lost to the biting cold weather.

6. March 19th
With a day to go to the March 20th deadline, however, the lads got all 13 piles into the ground at 18m each. That’s 234 metres of pile driving in all! It took another day to get all the machinery off site. 

7. May 21st
Despite all the haste in getting all the heavy duty work completed by March 20th, Nora sadly didn’t return. By the time Monty did on April 7th, work was well under way in connecting the Observatory to the visitor centre and hide with 530m of brand new boardwalk. The old boardwalk was flipped to the left for the contractors to access the Observatory, and the new boardwalk was constructed.

Volunteers Flora and Posh Pete inspect the new walkway!

8. June 6th
Some of the last pieces of the new boardwalk are put in place, connecting the Observatory directly with the current hide.

9. August 28th
With the Dyfi ospreys being some of the latest ospreys on record to breed in the UK in 2013 (thanks for that!), work could commence on the Observatory proper again at the end of August. Here the large steel girders are bolted and welded together, connecting all of the 13 piles forming the base of the Observatory.

10. September 9th
The top floor of the Observatory is almost 8m (26 feet) above ground level, even the first floor is over 2m (7 feet) above ground. Here’s part of the 40m ramp that connects the boardwalk to the Observatory.

11. September 15th
The steelwork and the timber joists are in place and the floor has just been put down. At last, we get a sense of the size of the Observatory.

12. October 9th
The huge Glulam beams have arrived and are delicately transported to the Observatory using a combination of several trollies with metal turntables and brute strength. The beams are made of Larch and the first arch is assembled on site and is ready to be winched up into place.

13. October 15th
After two attempts, Tom and his crew successfully winch the first of three enormous arches into place. Soon after, we are treated to a fly-pass by a Royal Air Force Hercules. Did they know?!

14. October 24th
The second arch is erected and both are connected together with dozens of nuts and bolts. After three years of waiting, the overambitious cameraman couldn’t wait to see the view from the top of the scaffold towers for the first time... A decision he quickly regretted soon after realising the tops of the trees were below him and his knees had morphed into jelly.

15. October 25th
With all the cross bracing in place and everything wired and battened down, Tom coordinates the final tie-downs before the impending storm coming in a couple of days.

So: three and a half years in the making, we are quickly approaching the final stages of the build phase of the 360 Project. The Observatory and boardwalk will be finished by the end of 2013 and we will open to the public again in March, once everything is in place including all the interpretation.

Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust are eternally grateful to all that are making this project possible, including our funders, Tom and his crew, and our visitors for having the patience to see this through with us. Tom has done an incredible job and all without the normal lifting gear and heavy machinery required for building a structure of this magnitude in the middle of a peat bog. The only cranes we are likely to see around here have feathers on.

If you are in the UK, take care with this impending storm approaching. The media are calling it the worst storm since 1987, let’s hope they’re wrong.