A month of change
It has been a busy August for the team at the Brenig Osprey Project. After Ceridwen (7M4) fledged on 24 July, it took Gwion (7M5) a further 6 days to take to the air. Since then, the two juveniles have been flying more and more, building up their flight muscles for their long migration flight to Africa.
Once the juveniles have fledged and are spending less time on the nest, life for the on-site volunteer team changes. While they are on the nest, the live stream in the lookout shows most of the action, and the telescopes are primarily focussed on the nest so that visitors of all ages can experience the thrill of seeing an osprey live. After fledging we have to do regular searches to make sure we know where the birds are at any given time to show visitors. The adults have their favourite perches; LJ2 likes to survey his empire from the PTZ camera perch, and 372 uses two particular stumps. The juveniles started using low perches at the base of the nest pole and are now moving around between perches. At the Lookout, keeping scopes focussed on at least one osprey at a time involves a lot of looking and talking – phrases like “second from the left from the solar panels” and “on the top bendy branch” may sound odd to visitors, but are essential shorthand used by the volunteers to keep birds in view as far as possible.
Another highlight of August was a talk at Llyn Brenig from Tim Mackrill on the projects to reintroduce ospreys and white tailed eagles to the UK. Fascinating stuff – especially for me the data about the way in which the white tailed eagle’s diet changes as they mature, from carrion, to rodents and rabbits, to being predominantly fish once they start breeding themselves.
Happy news
Beside the interest at the nest itself, we have had joyful news about ospreys who fledged from Llyn Brenig in previous years. Roli KA5, son of Blue 24 and HR7 who fledged in 2019 is on a nest on private land in North Wales, where he has a mate and chicks. Owain X6, son of LM6 and LJ2 from 2022 also has a nest with a partner and chicks in Wales. There have also been sightings this year in Wales of KA9 Gelert (2022) and 7B5 Dylis (2023). A small group of the lead volunteers were lucky enough to be able to see X6’s nest, a rare and exciting privilege.
Followers will remember that X6 was thought to be female when ringed in 2022 but has turned out to be male. In the last blog Mick reported that 7M5 Gwion seemed to be a little small, and no-one was surprised when Gwion was assessed as male at ringing. This bird has had a late growth spurt through August and now looks a very similar size to 7M4 Ceridwen. Several respected observers have shared the thought that 7M5 may turn out to be female – let’s hope someone somewhere sees him/her in 2027 and we find out for sure!
As I write on 3rd September all four birds are still at Llyn Brenig. Their departure on migration could happen any day. When that happens the volunteers will be involved in assessing and writing up the information about this season, undertaking more trail cam work to understand the wildlife around the reservoir, and starting the preparation for the 2026 season which is already less than 7 months away!
UPDATE - Shortly after Alastair sent us his blog, all four ospreys departed the nest. 372 (adult female), LJ2 (adult male) and 7M4 (female chick) all left on Thursday 4th September. 7M5 (male chick) then followed on Sunday 7th September.
