Llyn Clywedog is a reservoir situated near the B4518 road north of Llanidloes, Powys, Mid Wales. The reservoir is owned and operated by Severn Trent Water, with oversight and regulation by Natural Resources Wales. A sailing club and a very active trout fishery operate on the reservoir. The fishery stock the lake with tens of thousands of trout every year.
In 2004 the Forestry Commission erected an osprey platform; responsibility for this was taken over by Natural Resources Wales and it was eventually occupied in 2014, and has been used every season since then.
In 2023 the unringed osprey known as Dylan returned to the the original nest (Nest 1) for his eighth season as the resident male. Since 2020 the resident female has been Blue 5F(12) (known as Seren - Welsh for Star). She hatched in Rutland in 2012. Previously she had for several years been unsuccessful in attracting the sole attention of a male to a nest at Pont Croesor. The previous unringed female (Delyth) did not return in 2020, and Seren 5F replaced her. In 2020 Dylan and 5F Seren fledged 3 male young, in 2021 (a cold and wet season) only one male fledged, in 2022 one female and 2 males fledged. In 2023 2 males hatched but one (8B1) was predated by a goshawk before fledging. 5F Seren has regularly been seen in Africa in winter for many years - she was last seen in the Gambia on 8 February 2024.
In 2023 5F Seren returned to the nest on 25 March; Dylan arrived on 27 March. Both birds returned to the nest on 28 March 2024.
There is no visitor centre or facilities. The nest can be observed from a temporary hide in a layby off the minor road. There is a footpath close to the nest which is closed and blocked off during the nesting season.
In 2023 a natural nest (Nest 2) was found towards the southern end of the reservoir. From this nest Blue Z5, a 2020 bird from private nest in North Wales and an unringed male produced a single female chick who was ringed 7B9. Z5's father was blue Z1, a 2016 chick from the Dyfi, whose parents were Blue 12 (Glesni) and the unringed Monty. Nest 2 can be seen (with good optics) from the viewpoint at Bwlch y Gle.
The nests is looked after by the area NRW ranger John Williams; he has a blog on this link. There is a more comprehensive history of the site in his blog. John goes well beyond the call of duty to support the ospreys and ensure that the cameras are running etc. John is planning that nest 1 will have one fixed and one PTZ camera this season - the live feeds are on a new link every 12 hours, which is accesible from https://www.youtube.com/user/CarnyxWild . Nest 2 will not have any streaming camera coverage. All images are copyright Natural Resources Wales.
There is an active Facebook group for the nest on this link. The group tries to record all fish deliveries which are collated for analysis.
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15 June
Two supper fish - definitely different fish, Dylan didn't come back for a share of the first one.
As you can guess, the rain blobbed out any clear views.
Dylan returned at 19:07 hoping to take the leftover but Seren immediately got up and started feeding the chicks again.
IMAGICAT
A fine flapping breakfish - Dylan will definitely be back for some of this one:
17 June
Supper fishes:
This was a BIG fish, it was broader than it looks here - there was loads left for breakfish after 2 sittings tonight:
Goody
20 June
Medium breakfish, a vrey calm breakfish session:
Seren's unckilled stickifying annoyed the chicks:
This is a lovely nest and I so enjoyed the videos.thanks Scylla. Chicks were not about to let mamaa get away with being clouted by sticks !
Cams went down a couple of minutes ago - I did write to Peter Carnyx earlier to tell him that the video titles were still on the 19th, that's now been corrected but... no cams as I type.
Cameras were probably down for ringing the three males!
JillR said:Cameras were probably down for ringing the three males!
I didn't think of that, JILL - because I'd had so much trouble with the nest cam buffering and John had focused the perch cam down onto the nest. Distraction tactics? Crafty John
©️NRW-LlynClywedog
Only 8B4 showed his ring:
I tried to get more rings from the live stream but what a failure - the nearest I got was 8B5, I think !!!
To compensate, here's tea:
Another nest with all males! Great photos of all the ringing action, thanks Scylla.