A Quick Summary

Glesni

Our breeding female of the last five years has still not returned. Obviously it is looking increasingly unlikely that she will come back as each day passes, but we're not drawing a line under the Glesni chapter just yet, let's wait a few more days.

A breeding Kielder female has only just arrived back at her nest, well over two weeks later than last year - thanks Joanna :-). 2018 is turning out to be a very unusual year for returning migrants, we'll just have to sit it out and see what develops.

Q. What will happen to Blue 3J if Glesni returns?

A. Exactly what you think would happen most probably, but it depends on her strength and condition. Glesni would try and displace her cousin Blue 3J off the nest and, if any eggs had been laid, kick them out. There are a lot of variables including the biggest of all, will she come back? Let's wait and see how things pan out.

DAY 12

Time has flown by and we're already on DAY 12 of Monty and Blue 3J's relationship.

Over the last few days we've seen more and more behavioural changes, in both birds to be honest, indicating that we're not far off egg laying. Increased frequency of matings, nest-cupping, nestorations and general fiddling.

Some ARRIVA Train passengers got a quite a view this afternoon, what a time to pass the nest!

Some stunning images and audio from the nest today..

Q. Will we name Blue 3J?

A. By this time next week we should have a clearer picture as to whether Glesni will make it back. Blue 3J will also have laid eggs or be very close to it. So, if Blue 3J ends up being the Dyfi breeding female, we will start a poll on Facebook and you can decide whether she is named. If you're not on Facebook, we'll let you have an email address so that you can vote that way.

Other than the Dyfi chicks, we don't have an osprey naming policy as such. We've never named Blue 24 as she's not ours to name nor is she a breeding female here. DOP is a community project funded by our followers; we'll let you decide whether we give Blue 3J a name.

Other Welsh Nests

Everything seems to have settled down, thankfully.

Other than Glesni, all the other birds are back, most of them 'late', including Dylan and Delyth at Clywedog. John Williams reckons that Dai Dot is visiting there too - let's hope he lands on the Dyfi nest so that we can get a good look at him, we'll zoom straight for the eyes!

Dai Dot and his distinctive left eye iris dots (2016)

Blue 5F is still at the Post Croesor nest at Glaslyn and there are various reports of Blue 24 at differing locations in north Wales with a Scottish ringed male. If she breeds we'll let you know.

Clarach

Clarach has returned to her Aberfoyle nest and seems to be bonding with an unringed male.

Q. Is it the same male as last year?

A. Nobody can be really sure whether the male is the same individual from one year to the next. Behaviours can give clues, but trying to ID an unringed bird off a single wide-angle stationary camera is next to impossible.

The new Clarach pin badges have arrived!

They're on sale in the DOP shop right now and we'll have them in the online DOP shop sometime in September.

Weather

The UK weather has finally picked up with temperatures reaching a balmy 20°C (68°F) at Cors Dyfi this afternoon. Willow warblers are (finally) back and we heard our first cuckoo yesterday. There's also been a rather magnificent male hen harrier around the reserve recently giving visitors fantastic views.

Keep your seat belts on, we'll know a lot more answers to some probing questions over the next few days.