Ceulan

Ceulan

Choosing the Name

We've decided to call our little osprey Ceulan.

Many thanks to all of you that suggested various names for him/her. These are some of the reasons why we chose the name Ceulan.

Afon (River) Ceulan is a local river that runs down from the surrounding hills and mountains to Tal-y-bont, a village just down the road from the Dyfi osprey nest. Tal-y-bont made national headlines over the weekend due to the effects of the storm and many local residents had to be evacuated in what was the worst summer storm on record. The banks of the River Ceulan broke and resulted in unprecedented amounts of water flooding the tiny village.

Calm before the storn - Ceulan puts a wing over his younger sibling who sadly did not survive the storm

© MWT - Ceulan and sibling before the storm. Dyfi Osprey Project.

Rivers - All three of Monty and Nora's chicks last year were named after local rivers. By definition, rivers and waterways are all interconnected, water flowing through them, connecting them together. Young osprey Ceulan is a full sister/brother to Leri, Einion and Dulas. Just like the different rivers are all interrelated, so are our young ospreys.

Gender - We won't know what sex young Ceulan is for a few weeks yet, a river gets around this problem.

Association - Our young osprey has survived one of the most devastating storms to hit this part of Wales in living memory. River and Cwm (Valley) Ceulan were some of the worst areas affected. As we saw on Springwatch this week, a lot of the wildlife in the area has been wiped out, yet the residents of Cwm Ceulan survived to tell the tale. So did our young osprey.

At 12 days old, Ceulan enters that 'reptilian' stage. He'll get prettier as time goes on!

© MWT - Nora feeding Ceulan at 12 days old. Dyfi Osprey Project.

Welsh - We had to pick a Welsh name!

Pronunciation -  Some great names were suggested. Goroeswr (survivor); Gwyrth (miracle); Cwffiwr (fighter); Lwcus (lucky). The problem is, of course, we would like all our non-Welsh-speaking friends to be able to say the name without too many problems and breaking a jaw bone. We tested these out on some of the visitors that came by yesterday and also on our top volunteer who was with us Monday, Posh Pete. They don't come much more English than Pete and we often 'test' various Welsh name pronunciations on him. It's taken us four years to get "Bore da" out of him in any kind of understandable fashion so he makes a great guinea pig. Through bouts of laughter we got through the above names without much success, when we wrote Ceulan on a piece of paper next though, Pete blurted it out like a true native - perfect. If Peter can say Ceulan, everybody can say Ceulan.

Here is the phonetic way of saying Ceulan:  KAY - LAN

Young Ceulan is two weeks old today and already he has endured much in his short life. The forecast is for heavy rain again in a few days time, so we hope young Ceulan can pull through again. Many thanks again for all your suggestions and kind words over the last few days - we read them all and they mean a lot to us.

Don't forget you can watch Monty, Nora and young Ceulan live, 24 hours a day, on the live nest camera streaming. We have received around half of the money we need to pay for the streaming so far - if you enjoy watching the osprey family and and would like to donate, it's dead simple.

Through the rain - Ceulan comes out the other end of the storm after a little help from his friends

© MWT - Nora feeding Ceulan after the storm. Dyfi Osprey Project.