GLASLYN - March/April 2023

Some folks on YouTube say the water drains away once it stops raining. Heather posted the following earlier today:
"7:48 PMHeather Corfield When the nest was refurbished a few weeks ago a large quantity of compacted soil, that had been bought to the nest by the ospreys themselves, was removed from the nest
7:48 PMHeather Corfield The soil that is in there now is the remnants of this. The nest has not been rebuilt, but some additional sticks were added where it was in danger of potentially collapsing
7:48 PMHeather Corfield These can be seen near the top of the nest
7:50 PMHeather Corfield The plant that was growing in the nest was quite deeply rooted and it was not easy to remove it. It took considerable force to pull it up
7:54 PMHeather Corfield Ideally I do not like the nest to have too much work done on it each year, but there was no option as the sides had been damaged and there were big gaps at the sides
8:06 PMHeather Corfield For those that might not be aware of the history of this nest, our ospreys originally built a nest themselves in this same tree, back in 2004. They were already on eggs when it was discovered
8:06 PMHeather Corfield The tree is not ideal & the nest collapsed during a storm & the two chicks of around two weeks old did not survive the fall of around 90 feet
8:07 PMHeather Corfield That is why there is now a man made nest in the same tree with the top partially taken off
8:13 PMHeather Corfield Some of the other nests are also a good 30 to 40 feet lower down than the Glaslyn nest
8:15 PMHeather Corfield I have also been watching this camera every day over the past few weeks. The water does drain away, but it has barely stopped raining all day
8:15 PMHeather Corfield I can vouch for that as I am still sitting in my wet clothes
8:18 PMHeather Corfield This nest has been in place since 2014 and 21 chicks have successfully fledged from it
8:22 PMHeather Corfield 23 chicks fledged from the man made nest that was in place between 2005 & 2013. If it hadn't been for the deep sides W0 from 2015 may well have ended up going over the side whilst still an egg
9:03 PMHeather Corfield W0 was from the last of the 7 eggs that were laid in 2015. So he was the youngest of the two chicks. The two chicks were hatched 4 days apart as the eggs were 5 days apart
9:03 PMHeather Corfield Probably due to them being a second clutch. As there were 14 days between eggs 5 & 6"

(Aran had accidentally kicked WO's egg out of the nest cup while incubating but he eventually noticed it and rolled it back down into the nest cup and underneath him.  It was a huge thrill for everyone when WO successfully returned to the UK.  If I remember rightly, he was the bird who dropped in on and harassed his half brother Black 80 and his mate on the Threave nest.)