This week's blog is all about one very special bird. On Tuesday, Ceulan will reach the grand old age of six weeks young - something that, at the age of 11 days old, we never thought would happen.

May 29th - Ceulan receiving his first ever bit of food. Sadly, the first chick to hatch (left), died two days later

The age of six weeks old represents something of a milestone for young ospreys. Ceulan will now be almost fully self-thermoregulating - he can look after his own body temperature without assistance. He's also big enough to have escaped the clutches of all but the most desperate of avian predators. In fact, he's so big, Ceulan will be around 90% of the body mass of what he'll be as a juvenile migrating to Africa for the first time. He looks quite a bit smaller than his parents, especially when he's wet, but a lot of this is due to feather development - over the next two weeks there will be a huge spurt in feather growth, particularly the flight critical feathers: primaries, secondaries and 12 tail feathers.

Day 38. Despite a month's worth of rain (61mm) falling on him in a day, Ceulan is much better equipped now to deal with adverse conditions

Monty has brought 17 fish back to the nest this week so far, with just a few hours to go, the (equal) highest weekly total so far this year. Interestingly, only two flounders this week and domestic relations seem to be good again between Monty and Nora after last week's altercations. Another species this week too - a garfish. Monty brought two garfish in last year, they seem to be a speciality of his.
 
This is not turning out to be a good day

Roy Dennis will be joining us later on this week, as will Tony Cross from the Welsh Kite Trust. Young Ceulan will have a Darvic ring placed on his right leg and a BTO ring on his left. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been zooming in on some of Ceulan's feathers looking for fault-bars with our HD cameras. These are tell-tale signs depicting lack of growth/feeding during young age and the general healthiness of a nestling - I haven't found many. In collaboration with Roy and Tony, we will make a decision whether to satellite tag Ceulan on the day of the ringing. If we see any signs of weakness or decide that Ceulan is not in the best possible health, he will not be tagged.

The day of the ringing has not been set yet as it is dependent on many things, including the weather, but we will aim for Thursday or Friday. We need to pick a time basically when it is not raining or blowing a gale.

Rain, rain go away

I said in last week's blog that during the week we will start to see developmental clues as to whether Ceulan is a male or a female. Thanks to many of you that 'voted' on our Facebook page. Males tend to be smaller, whiter and thinner, as a general rule, with a narrower beak and skinnier legs. Without other chicks in the nest to act as a comparison, however, it is extremely difficult. Here's Ceulan today - what do you think?

Ceulan age 40 days. Boy or girl?

Finally, excellent news from the Glaslyn ospreys just 30 miles north of us. They have, for the fifth year in succession, successfully fledged three chicks from the nest - that's 21 birds in all since 2005. That's some going, particularly considering the weather we've had this year. They had two males and a female - let's hope we see them back in a few year's time - llongyfarchiadau. The first Rutland osprey of the season fledged today (male), also from their Site B nest (that's Nora's Dad, so it's her half brother). Many congratulations to them. And at the other extreme, Black 80 (a Glaslyn 2006 male osprey) has just become a Dad for the fourth year running at his Scottish nest. What a strange season it's turning out to be - ospreys hatching at one nest and fledging at another within hours of each other!

And finally, finally - Bob has asked me to thank everyone that sent him good wishes following last week's blog. He popped in quickly this morning to give us a cake - he's well back on the road to recovery. (The cake didn't last long, Bob!)

Here's a short video from today - it promises to be a special week this week for you-know-who.