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.
Catlady said:Asha, Scylla?!
Asha, Scylla?!
Heehee, I won't edit it, it's evidence of the state of my head ;-D
IMAGICAT
I decided to leave that 'error' alone too
.
95 June
#3 got a really super breakfish this morning - full feed here, as well as the other two getting bites first:
Such a great video. Many thanks Scylla
09:25 - Intruder - but can't be seen on either cam. I'm only screen-capturing the perch cam, which is not as close-up as the nest cam but the latter has loose tape flapping into view with the breeze.
There was a repeat about one minute ago. Maybe someone on-the-spot knows what's going on.
scylla said:I'm only screen-capturing the perch cam
And I got caught out - after a nap I found that it had been redirected to the perch! On hastily changing to the nest cam, I was delighted to see a feed going on, with #3 getting bite after bite after bite - and since then (I've forgotten what time it was) Seren has been force-feeding all 3 every time I check! Currently, they're all collapsed in happy heaps
Some "highlights" from the past week, and I know I always have to make excuses but I got in a middle and it's not very good quality.
Unlike with my downloads, this screen-capture nest is in one-hourly clips so it takes much longer to go thru and I have to skip a lot, so this is not at all comprehensive and may have significant events missing - but from what I see it's a wonderfully happy nest so far.
#3 is doing great, there's no conflict and there have been some super - if rather lively - fish.
Thanks for the Scylla; I agree that watching this nest is a lower stress activity than many. 5F has a remarkable ability to get chicks lined and stuff fish into them without any rivalry, and Dylan is on top of the fishing and seeing off intruders. We have seen 5 mullet this month among the usual trout and perch - he seems to catch these when he escorts intruders towards the coast and grabs a sea fish on the way back.
13 June
I've surpassed myself in the "nothing happening" video category - Dylan brought back a fish and Seren acted as tho he wasn't there for 15 minutes, until he gave up and flew off with it - and then there was a 10-minute repeat, except that Dylan picked at the fish to pass the time. Were they uneasy about something, or what?
Mmmm well. not much of a fish to wait for ! But i love you Dylan. I know the brood are well catered for fish wise . Thank you Scylla