The Glaslyn Osprey Project

As I mentioned in my last blog “Intervention” I wondered how the RSPB Ospreys fared compared to the Dyfi Ospreys, after all they are geographically almost in the same location. I phoned Geraint Williams to catch up on their progress. Geraint Williams is the project leader and keeps an Osprey Diary on the Dates With Nature section of the community pages. You can view that blog here for up to date news of the goings on at the site.

The conversation started with a whole load of drama. There was another pair of Ospreys circling the nest whilst the male was away catching fish; Osprey chicks have a play dead strategy in the nest. The parent birds were calling to chicks, and they were indeed doing this as I was talking Geraint. I would have loved to have been there to see it. Alas all I had from my vantage point of the kitchen table was a Grey Squirrel which fell of the feeding station in a mildly amusing way! All was good at the nest by the time we had finished chatting; the male had returned and combined with the female, they saw off the interlopers. The chicks were being fed fish the male bird had brought back.

I started by asking for some background information on the site. Geraint explained that the same pair of Ospreys have been returning to the nest site since its discovery in 2004. There are only two breeding pairs of Ospreys in Wales, the second pair being at Dyfi.

The pair returned to the nesting site on the 18^th of March of this year, and successfully bred; the first egg being spotted on the nest on the 4^th April. Geraint went on to say that the nest was very deep this year, so the exact timings of the remaining eggs is uncertain, but by the 10^th April there were three eggs in the nest. All three chicks hatched successfully on the 11^th, 12^th and 14^th of May, and the time of putting this blog live I am pleased to say, all three are doing well!

So why did the Glaslyn Ospreys fare better than the Dyfi Ospreys? Geraint told me that when the devastating storms hit on the 9^th June there were some key differences between both sets of Ospreys. The Glaslyn Ospreys were that couple of weeks older, which meant their feathers, had developed further and were not still downy. It stopped the young birds being quite so affected by the wet. The area suffered flooding, and the staff and volunteers were wading through four feet of water at times to keep an eye on the nests. Glaslyn didn’t get battered by the high winds as much as the Dyfi Estuary did, which was just as well, as the nests are situated about eighty feet off the ground. These small differences in the weather allowed the parent birds to feed continuously during the worse the weather could muster. There was also some interesting behaviour displayed, with the chicks actually being fed beneath the parent bird. Again that sheltering process prevented the chicks losing too much body heat, or getting too wet.

These small, but hugely significant differences can be all it takes between life and death for these vulnerable birds. If the four chicks from both our breeding pairs can fledge, then it is still a pretty successful year for them, which would be incredible considering all that Mother Nature has thrown at them.

It should be about a fortnight before the chicks fledge. I am hoping to pay a visit to the site sometime around the end of July and August to see these magnificent birds for myself. I have only seen Ospreys as they have passed over here and Newport Wetlands, and the sightings were fleeting.

Finally, I would like to thank Geraint for taking the time to talk to me. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of hard work and dedication and most of all the love these people show to our iconic Ospreys in Porthmadog. Please take the time to bookmark and read Geraint’s Osprey Diaries. Let’s wish them all the luck in the world!

 Glaslyn Ospreys Images © Andy Rouse