2011

Despite Monty not managing to attract a female to breed with during of the previous two years, we eagerly awaited the start of the 2011 season. There's a saying in Welsh: 'Tri chais i Gymro' - Three chances for a Welshman, so of course, we were optimistic that this year would be Monty's year.

On the evening of 6^th April an osprey was spotted flying towards the Llyfnant Valley. The following morning an osprey was present at the nest site, unfortunately the electricity supply to the nest was down for a few days, which meant a positive ID was not possible, but judging from behaviours and from long distance photographs that were taken of the underwing pattern it did appear to be Monty; he also looked to have dark orange eyes.

On the morning of 9^th April a female osprey arrived on the scene and Monty began to display in earnest, very soon afterwards they began mating on the nest. It was still early days, but we felt that the longer she remained around the nest the more chance there was that she might stay. “Nora” as she had been nicknamed, frequently disappeared during the day, giving cause for concern for several days. However, she did keep returning to the nest in the evenings.  On the evening of Monday 11^th April we photographed “Nora” flying over the car park and we enhanced the photograph - there appeared to be a white darvic ring on her right leg and a metal BTO ring on her left leg. Only English and Welsh ospreys have been ringed with this combination, Scottish ospreys are ringed the opposite way around. This narrowed down her identity and it seemed the most likely possibility was that she was a Glaslyn born female, as the Glaslyn nest is just 28 miles away from the Dyfi nest, or she was a Rutland bird. Interestingly, of the two known breeding pairs of ospreys in Wales up to this time, the males of both pairs were Rutland translocated birds. The following day a visitor called into the Project, Garry Ridsdale, a well known osprey and wildlife photographer and he managed to get an excellent photograph of “Nora” which finally revealed her identity as White 03 and her history was well recorded. Nora was born in 2008 at a Rutland Water nest site, she had two siblings that year, a brother ringed 05 and a sister ringed 01. Her brother 05 returned to Rutland Water in 2010 as a two year old, but he has not been seen in 2011. Nora's parents are both Rutland translocated ospreys. Her Father was born in 1997, he was also ringed with White 03 but on the left leg, he has since lost this ring. Her Mother was born in 2000, ringed Green 05, and she bred with 03/97 from 2003 to 2008. This has been Rutland Water's most successful osprey pair to date and 03/97 is still going strong as a 14 year old. Unfortunately Nora was from Green 05's last clutch, as she failed to return from her winter migration in 2009.

First image of Nora - April 2011                                                                                                                                      ©Emyr Evans/MWT

Nora was continuing to cause concern with her disappearances and on the 14^th April another female landed on the nest. This female also had a white leg ring, this time on her left leg with the letters DA. This revealed her to be a Scottish osprey, also born in 2008 at a nest at Loch Aard near Aberfoyle. DA was a very large female and was happy to take fish from Monty, even though she rather ungraciously snatched it from him before snapping at him. At 5.30pm she began to look a little nervous and out of nowhere Nora returned and attacked her. We watched nervously as the two girls took each other on in a full-on dog fight in the air. Finally Monty joined forces with Nora and saw the big Scottish girl on her way; after this Nora did not disappear from the nest site again and settled down with Monty on the Dyfi nest.

On 25^th April at 14.03 the historic moment we had all been waiting for finally happened. An osprey egg was laid in a nest on the Dyfi Estuary for the first time in over 400 years. Three days later on 28^th April at 12.29 a second egg was laid, followed by a third at 11.45 on 1^st May. Until the second egg was laid Nora did not appear to want to settle on the first egg for long, she even left it completely unincubated for the first two nights, a period of around seven hours each night. As Nora was a first time breeder it was unlikely that all three eggs would hatch, but we didn't know whether this period of being un-incubated was down to lack of experience on Nora's part or whether it was a behavioural decision which was purposeful to aid the synchronisation of hatching six weeks later.

On 18^th May an intruder osprey landed on the nest. He was none other than White YC, born at the Glaslyn nest in Porthmadog in 2008. He had landed on his natal nest a few weeks previously on 21st April, so we were delighted to see he had remained in Wales. He visited the Dyfi again on 29^th May, landing on the T Perch and was possibly the right legged white ringed visitor on 10^th June. Let's hope we see YC return to breed in Wales in the coming years. 

The average incubation period for an osprey egg is around 37 days. As the expected date of hatching of the first egg came and went, so our hopes moved on to egg number two. By day 38 for the second egg, we were becoming increasingly anxious. We had thought that a crack was appearing on several occasions during the week - they had all turned out to be false alarms however, but once again we thought we could see a tiny hole appearing. This time we were not wrong, there was a definite hole with a chick's egg tooth clearly visible moving around underneath the membrane - Nora was even giving some assistance, clipping some of the egg shell away with her beak. June 5th was certainly a memorable day, not only was egg No 2 hatching, by mid afternoon there were loud screamig and gasps from the visitor centre - Egg number 1 had a crack in it - it too was hatching. At the same time!

Nora had been very kind to us as she had laid three very distinctive and differently patterned eggs. The egg with the largest hole was certainly the second egg laid and we assumed the egg with the dent must be egg number three, as egg one was now 41 days old and surely unviable. At 15.35 the first chick broke free from its shell much to the delight of the very full visitor centre. People watched in amazement that evening as Nora attempted to give food to her first ever chick, but she could not quite work out the angle to present the fish to the chick below her. The following morning at 06.35 the second chick finally arrived. It was at this point that we noticed that the egg remaining in the nest was in fact the third egg. On the 7^th June at 10.19 this third egg hatched. The incubation periods for the three eggs were 38 days, 42 days and 37 days. We think that the first egg was slightly behind the second egg because it was allowed to become chilled, but remained viable once it was brought back up to the female’s body temperature once she began incubating the second egg.

The first few days were very anxious ones, Monty did not always bring back fish as often as we thought he would. He was a quick learner though and soon became an excellent provider of fish for his family. We saw very little sibling rivalry due to food shortages during the first few critical weeks. In fact when the chicks were ringed, there was very little evidence of damage to the feather shafts, which proved that they had been well fed. In those early days Monty also appeared to want to brood the chicks, much to the annoyance of Nora, who would try to push him off them. Monty also brought back some rather interesting fish throughout the season, including a Garfish on 26^th June, followed a few days later by the poisonous Greater Weeverfish. Monty even brought back the endangered and  Red Listed, Twaite Shad to the nest one morning in early August!

Shortly after the chicks hatched, the Dyfi Ospreys were featured on the BBC TV series “Springwatch”, which was being broadcast from the nearby RSPB Ynys Hir reserve. The Dyfi Osprey family became a popular feature of the series and shortly after Springwatch had ended, the BBC approached the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust with a proposal to satellite tag the three osprey youngsters so that their journeys to Africa could be followed on the forthcoming series of “Autumnwatch”. The BBC would fund two of the transmitters, if the Trust would fund the third. An appeal was quickly set up and by the end of the first week enough money had been raised to pay for the third transmitter. These transmitters usually take four to five months to order from the States, however, we were fortunate in being able to locate three transmitters that were already in the UK, the right size for ospreys, and ready to use. This was the first time in the UK that all three osprey chicks from the same nest were to be tagged. A surplous of £1,500 was raised in total and this money went into the developing this website.

On the 19^th July, Roy Dennis of the Highland Foundation for Wildlife, the renowned osprey expert and the only person licensed in the UK to tag satellite transmitters on ospreys, travelled from Scotland to ring and fit the transmitters on to the three chicks. With the assistance of Network Rail, a small team from the Dyfi Osprey Project, the BBC, Roy Dennis and Tony Cross of the Welsh Kite Trust, they walked up the railway track to approach the nest, negating unnecessary disturbance. Tony Cross climbed the ladder just after 10am to bring the chicks down to the ground. All three osprey chicks were extremely passive and gentle as their parents slowly circled the nest calling out to their offspring to ‘play dead’ (“Thanatosis” is the behavioural term). This is their best form of defence if a natural predator were around as their cryptic feathering camouflages them against the base of the nest.

Roy Dennis having just ringed Einion with a Darvic ring - Blue DH                                                                              © Emyr Evans/MWT

They were fitted with blue plastic darvic rings on their right legs, a BTO metal ring on their left, measured and weighed. Roy then started putting the satellite trackers on the birds, it was like watching a surgeon at work on top of his game, the accuracy and attention to detail was incredible as he sew the tiny harnesses together with a specialised needle, periodically feeling the tension of the harness so that the bird came to no harm. The trackers themselves weigh 30g which is around 2% of the total weight of the osprey and have a negligible effect, the mortality rates of tagged ospreys to un-tagged ospreys is no different.

The whole operation took a little over an hour after which Tony gently placed the chicks back in their nest. Nora returned staright after the team left and immediately started feeding on the sea bass we had left in the nest as a thank-you gesture for borrowing her daughter and two sons for an hour. Now we knew the gender of all the chicks decided to call them after three rivers/tributaries that flow into the Dyfi River. Leri for the female and Einion and Dulas for the males.

The average fledge date for osprey chicks in the UK is 53 days and almost bang on queue at 14.22 on 27^th July at 52 days old, Einion left the nest and took his first flight. Two days later on 29^th July at 08.42 and at 53 days old, Dulas followed his brother into the skies. Leri was a little bit slower than the boys to fledge, but it is common for females to be a little bit slower than males to leave the nest.  She finally fledged the nest on 3^rd August at 16.34, she was 57 days old. The following day Nora caught a fish for the first time since she had become resident on the nest. We wondered how much longer she would remain with us before embarking on her winter migration to Africa. Many of the Scottish females leave in mid-August. True to form, at 08.25 on Sunday 14^th August we had our last sighting of Nora. She left 11 days after seeing the last of her chicks fledge.

Now we were just left with Monty and the three juveniles. Monty continued to regularly bring fish to the nest and also would appear from nowhere when any intruders were around to protect his family. Not that they needed it! On 21^st August an osprey intruder landed on the nest and Leri fiercely defended her territory, driving the intruder off the nest, just as her Mother did on several occasions this year.

We have seen many intruder ospreys this year, at least eleven different birds that we could distinguish, there were probably many more. This bodes well for the future of ospreys as a breeding species in Wales. Roy Dennis believes there should be ten pairs of ospreys on the Dyfi estuary alone, so perhaps one day we will again see the sight of several pairs along the estuary, just like the Flemish engineer saw in 1604.

Monty started his migration back to Africa September 12th.                                                  By kind permission © Andy Rouse

The Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust would like to extend our gratitude to Network Rail who kindly arranged for the ringing team to access the nest site quickly and safely from Dyfi Junction station under their supervision. Network Rail also provide power and infrastructure to the osprey nest cameras throughout the season and play a key role in the conservation of the Dyfi Ospreys. Thank you.