LLYN BRENIG, LLYN CLYWEDOG WELSH OSPREY PROJECTS CAPTURES & UPDATES APRIL 2020 TO END FEB 2021

Llyn Brenig - Chris Packham and Iolo Williams are aware of the situation, and have spoken to the Mirror   It will all help.

Thanks, Sheila, That is good news.

At Clywedog, 552 and 550 were seen on the nest on Saturday morning, but there are no sightings of any of the family since then. John Williams has checked the area this morning and sees no sign of them, so the conclusion is that they have all left on migration.

Thank you AG Farewell and safe travels to them all

I have had a reply to my FoI request to Natural Resources Wales about the filming at Llyn Brenig. The Principal Strategic Advisor Operations writes:

"The film company contacted NRW in early August regarding the proposed filming. The osprey nest and film location are on Welsh Water land and not in a Site of Special Scientific Interest and so Section 28 consent (for an Operation Likely to Damage an SSSI) was not required.

Regarding the Ospreys, Welsh Water have for some years established a 150m “exclusion zone” around the osprey nest. They have a licence to film the Ospreys as they are a Schedule 1 species (Wildlife and Countryside Act). No additional licence application was submitted in relation to the recent filming work."

No doubt the same information has been shared with the North Wales Police Rural Crime Unit and North Wales Wildlife Trust.

There are a couple of interesting points in this for me.

1 The film company only contacted NRW in early August when preparation work was imminent if not underway.
2 Is the making of this programme REALLY covered by the existing Welsh Water licence?

I'm not going to speculate about next steps, but just hope they happen soon, and are publicised widely.

If you have not already watched it, you might want to have a look at the interview of wildlife photographer Gary Jones by Heather of Glaslyn. It is available on the Glaslyn Facebook page. He does a short presentation at the beginning before answering submitted questions. He also makes a few comments about the situation at Llyn Brenig, and shows many fabulous photos of various wildlife and particularly birds of prey, including several of the Osprey family at Llyn Brenig, taken when the chick was well grown but before the telly filming began. One photo of Blue 24 taken early one morning is wonderfully atmospheric, but they are all lovely.

North Wales Wildlife Trust have issued an update on their work relating the filming at Llyn Brenig. The full statement is here.

They state "we have now supplied North Wales Police’s Rural Crimes Team with our own information based on our observations of the Llyn Brenig ospreys in 2020, and a comparison with previous breeding seasons."

Hopefully NWP can make progress on this, but right now I am prepared to cut them a little slack, as yesterday they had (with RSPCA) to evacuate several hundred ill-treated animals from a farm in Gwynnedd, including around 90 horses.

Enquiries are underway by others on whether the work at Llyn Brenig may contravene planning legislation. 

An update from the North Wales Wildlife Trust, posted today

Update 03/09/20

Following the reports of filming and associated activities at Llyn Brenig, we have now supplied North Wales Police’s Rural Crimes Team with our own information based on our observations of the Llyn Brenig ospreys in 2020, and a comparison with previous breeding seasons. Please be assured that this remains an important issue for us and we will continue to work towards ensuring that the birds receive full protection this year and in the future.  Once again, we want to make clear that we were not asked to assess the potential impact on the ospreys of any of the activities linked to the filming in advance of the works taking place: or, indeed, told that the works were due to take place at all.

We have continued to monitor the ospreys over the past week or so (see previous updates here), although it is more difficult to follow their activity since they changed their location. We are grateful to have had help with this from others who have reported their sightings to us. 

Blue 24 was last positively identified at Llyn Brenig on 29/8/20, whilst we saw two ospreys flying high in the sky over the far end of our Gors Maen Llwyd Nature Reserve on 30/8/20.

We also spotted a bird on 31/8/20 which may have been an osprey but was very high up and far away. As far as we are aware there have been no further sightings of any of the three birds, suggesting that they have all left on migration.

 We will continue to monitor the area until we are sure that the birds have departed for the winter – come and visit our lookout point (just past the sailing club) on between Friday and Sunday (4-6 September) from 11:30 onwards.

Sorry to duplicate AG. I was writing mine as you posted!!

How dreadful to hear about the farm animals being evacuated.