We have something very special for you this year..

Ten years ago this month, Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust put an osprey platform up on the banks of the Dyfi River.

By 2009 several birds had shown an interest, including Monty, and in 2011 we had our first breeding pair on the nest. Monty has successfully bred on this nest every year since: with Nora (White 03/08) in 2011 and 2012, then Glesni (Blue 12/10) thereafter, both Rutland-born females.

Our first camera system in March 2009 cost £17,000 - cheap once you consider all the components, including at that time, a transmitter and receiver system to beam the moving images back to the visitor centre through the air (and trees!).

Here's a rather special video we found this week taken with this rather archaic camera, of a male intruder back in 2011. This is probably the first ever record of Dai Dot:

They were Dulas and Leri in the nest and Einion on the ash perch. Looking back now it's laughable how poor the quality was - and no audio back then either. But we thought it was great at the time!

By 2012 technologies had moved on and support for DOP grown, we just had to find a better way to get higher quality images from the nest, preferably by using a hard-wired cable, rather than wireless systems. Network Rail kindly stepped in and donated almost a mile of their 'super armoured fibre cable' they were using to replace their railroad copper network of communication wiring.

On St Davids Day 2012, we embarked on what is still the largest volunteer event we've ever organised and managed to install the fancy new cable the whole way across the reserve to Monty's nest. We called it The Big Pull and it made the news that night:

With the new fibre optic technology we could exponentially improve our nest cam footage and, for the first time, transmit back audio from the nest too.

With grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and EU funding we installed four High Definition cameras and a brand new telegraph pole donated by Scottish Power to support them. At the time, the pictures we received back were revolutionary, some of the first, if not the first, pictures of HD quality shot at a bird's nest.

Soon after we built the DOP website and by June that year beamed our first ever live streaming of Monty and Nora to the whole world. Everybody could see these first-time parents for the first time, bringing up their three youngsters - Einion, Dulas and Leri.

Over the last five years we have tweaked and incrementally improved the camera system, but it is fundamentally the same. Until now.

We've always tried to bring you images using the best technology available at that time, but over the last year or so the next evolutionary step in nest camera technology has occurred. Next week we will install the first ever 4K PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) surveillance camera onto an osprey nest.

What Does 4K Mean?

Well, basically you have four times the resolution that regular 1080 High Definition has. In terms of sensor size (just like in your smart phone or digital camera), that's a 400% increase - from a 2MP sensor to a 8MP light-capturing imager.

We have been working hard with BT over the last year or so to upgrade our telephone system at DOP. I'm delighted to announce that we now have super fast fibre-to-the-premise broadband ready and tested for the 2017 season. Together with the fibre cable we installed five years ago, the pictures you will see on the Live Streaming this year should be breathtaking.

4K technology is not just about an increase in resolution however. Colours will be more vibrant, dynamic range (blown out whites and blacks) will be greatly improved as will the new autofocus system. The camera lens will be sharper and fibre broadband will enable us to stream the images to you using much greater bitrates and no compression at all - the detail-destroying necessary evil and the enemy of all Live Streaming systems using copper-based broadband.

In a nutshell, here are five things that will be improved this year:

1. 4K PTZ camera (AXIS Q6128-E) installed just above the nest around six feet away.

2. Another brand new camera (AXIS P1425-LE) will be installed on the larch perch bringing us amazing horizontal views of any bird perching on the larch tree. This camera has its own IR lamp built in so that once the chicks fledge and start to roost on the larch perch, we will be able to see them for the first time. Ceri demanded we do this ☺

3. We will buy two wireless Trail Cameras. These will be used on perches that we know ospreys use on the reserve and they'll have wireless technology built in. What does that mean? So many ospreys land on perches at all times of the day and night, we can't see and identify most of them. Once Einion lands on one of these perches, the camera will take a photograph and video within 0.2 seconds of it happening. The wireless part means that the images are sent to us within 30 seconds of the bird landing via a text message. I mean, who wants to wait till September to know who's been around in April!

We need a better system of recording other ospreys perching nearby...

4. To take advantage of all this osprey goodness, we will have a new LS page on the DOP website with an enlarged Live Streaming window with nothing on either side. It will be around 50% larger than the one you're used to. The old page will still be there also, including the Live Chat, weather forecasts, links, updates etc. It will be your preference which you choose.

5. For the first time we will install a DVR function. This means that you can rewind the live streaming up to an hour back in time using a slider under the LS - a bit like SKY+ if you've got it. How many times have you logged on only to have just missed a chick hatching or fledging - or Monty being blown over in a pride-destroying gust of wind? This will sort this out for you. It may not be available right at the start of the season, but we'll do our best - it may also be 90 minutes rewind time too - watch this space.

Monty's Trigger moment

DOP Camera Appeal - £20,000

Installing and paying for all this will cost around £20,000 this season and as you probably know by now, we do not receive any funding from the EU or anywhere else. DOP 2017 will be operated purely by the donations and shop sales we receive.

Can you help us with our camera appeal?

There are four ways you can donate:

1. Via the BT MyDonate button on the Live Streaming page (best, as BT don’t take a cut and you can click a box for Gift Aid if you pay tax in the UK – another 25% is added to your amount by the tax wo/man)

2. Via the PayPal button on the Live Streaming page (but no Gift Aid and Paypal take around 3%)

3. By sending a cheque payable to ‘Dyfi Osprey Project’ to:

Emyr Evans
Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust
42 Broad Street
Welshpool
Powys
SY21 7RR

Thank you very much for your generosity. We are so excited about the 2017 season - bet you are too. DOP opens three weeks today - 25th March.

Next week I'll write a quick update on how the installation has gone with some tips on how to get the best out of the new system.

Not long to go now. Keep Calm, Look Up and please press the Donate button ☺

Glesni should be starting her long migration back to Wales in the next week or so..