Britain's largest Bird Fair is just coming to an end at Rutland Water, a fabulous weekend of watching, listening and talking birds. Whilst our own Janine managed to pop over for one day, I was left pondering back at the Dyfi about all the birds we've seen here over the last five months.

98 bird species in total for the reserve this year - not bad, but how many had we photographed actually on the osprey nest and perch?  

The new cameras were up by March 20th - the first thing we photographed was a pair of buzzard feet!

I chose this particular camera system not only for the High Definition video capability, but also for it's still image quality. Video is useless for newspapers, magazines and print media where the humble photograph is still king, so getting quality images was paramount.

A few hours after the buzzard departed, this male stonechat landed on the nest perch in glorious evening sunshine

The following day and a male chaffinch is intrigued by the new cameras

After the warm-up acts, the main event started on March 24th when Nora arrived back from Africa. She looked in great condition, which was just as well. She had to wait nine days in all for Monty to return and in that time she was constantly harassed and mobbed by carrion crows.

Just what you need after a 3,500 mile journey..

As soon as she got rid of the crows, a red kite kept Nora company whilst she fixed her nest

In all, we've photographed 19 bird species in 2012 on the osprey nest with a couple of weeks of the project left. The only disappointment has been not seeing the Merlin that we've seen for the last three years on the nest; mind you, she did make a late appearance last year, so there's still time.

Alright, these 19 species might not quite constitute a Bird Fair but it's a surprising amount of birds on one osprey nest in a single season. They've been fabulous to watch and they also help us at Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust engage and educate people along the way about bird life and nature in general. Here's a video of just some of these birds:

Here are all 19 species:

Buzzard                   Mistle Thrush
Red Kite                   Whitethroat
Kestrel                      Stonechat
Barn Owl                  Magpie
Osprey                      Chaffinch
Carrion Crow           Greater Spotted Woodpecker
Jackdaw                  Great Tit
Wren                         Redstart
Willow Warbler         Starling
Meadow Pipit

From 19 species to over 450 - that's how many moth species our intrepid volunteer Maria has now recorded and photographed on Cors Dyfi Reserve. That's a phenomenal amount of diversity for such a small 30-acre reserve. Around 40 people came to the moth evening on August 11th and between everybody, over 120 species were recorded, some new for the reserve. A huge thanks to Maria and county moth recorder Pete Williams for arranging and hosting the event - their enthusiasm and commitment is off the scale and they do all of this work voluntarily.

A drinker moth (Euthrix potatoria) attracted to Maria's light trap has a liking for dew drops - hence its name

Finally this week, some other highlights, and we're back to birds again. A small flock of black-tailed godwits have been feeding just below the osprey nest for the last few days, all in brilliant summer plumage. These will probably be early arrivals from their breeding grounds in Iceland, although some do breed in the UK, but these tend to migrate to west Africa for the winter just like our ospreys. A female marsh harrier has been around also; these raptors are very scarce in Wales and do not breed here. A similar-looking bird was photographed on the Glaslyn marshes yesterday evening (August 19th) just a few miles north - I wonder if it's the same bird?

Just when you thought you've seen all there is to see on an osprey nest in one season, we were surprised on Saturday to find an apple in there. Has Ceulan turned vegetarian or did the carrion crows bring it in? Very strange. We have herbivorous ospreys that should be piscivorous and piscivorous corvids that should be omnivorous. Try saying that after a few shandies.