July, Friday 13th didn't start very well. At 5am, it was raining and misty, not the kind of weather to be ringing an osprey. Ceulan was 45 days old, and Roy Dennis and Tony Cross had joined the Dyfi osprey team to ring young Ceulan and, if he was healthy, tag him with a satellite transmitter.

By 7am, the rain had stopped and by 9am, Ceulan looked dry in the nest. After the umpteenth coffee, we decided that the weather had, probably for the first time this year, been kind to us. We quickly gathered our things, set off, and by 9.30am, Tony had the ladder up to the nest and was bringing Ceulan gently to the ground.

I must admit, I had a tear in my eye when I saw Ceulan again - he looked a lot different to the last time we met.

Same bird, same place, five weeks apart

As soon as Roy saw Ceulan, he uttered one word - "male". It confirmed what we had been thinking for the last couple of weeks, and by the time Tony had weighed him, it was beyond doubt. Ceulan weighed 1415g - a good healthy weight for a male osprey at six weeks old. Ceulan is a boy.

Next up was ringing. The plastic ID rings are called Darvic rings and in Scotland, these are placed on the left leg. In Wales and England, they go on the right leg - this then allows the same number to be used twice. All new rings for osprey are now blue, so in time this will become synonymous with British birds. (Some ringers do have some old stock of rings, however, so not every single osprey ringed this year will have a blue ring, but the vast majority will.) Different European countries have different colours for ospreys: Germany, black; France, orange; and so on.

Ceulan is the third male osprey to be ringed from the Dyfi nest, so 3C is quite apt!

Finally, we gave Ceulan his satellite tracker. Roy and Tony checked him over thoroughly and could find no signs of weakness or stress - Ceulan's weight also confirmed that he had been fed well and was in excellent condition. Yes, they've only had one chick to feed this year, but Monty and Nora have done an incredible job of raising Ceulan this summer - the worst breeding season, weather-wise, in over 100 years since records began.

Aberystwyth University have kindly funded the tracker project and I will be writing a blog about this exciting new partnership, and the role satellite positioning plays in aiding osprey conservation and recovery, in the next few days. If you have any questions regarding satellite tracking ospreys, please keep them and ask them after the next blog - I'll do my best to answer all the questions. Here's a quick fact for now: the weight of the tracker we put on Ceulan yesterday is 30g. Bearing in mind he weighs 1415g, this represents around 2% of his body weight at the moment, but will be less by the time Ceulan migrates to Africa as he will have put some more weight on.

Roy fits the satellite tracker on to Ceulan's back as Tony holds him

Ringing and satellite-tagging ospreys is stressful at the best of times, but doing it in the public gaze takes it to another level. Every decision has to be a quality decision and the correct decision. Mistakes cannot be made. Every time I meet Roy, Tony and many other ringers, I am humbled by their enthusiasm and professionalism. At 2pm, I took Roy to Machynlleth train station to catch his afternoon train to Rutland, where he will be satellite tagging two ospreys there. As I shook his hand and thanked him he said to me - "It looks good for ospreys in Wales, doesn't it?"

Indeed it does. A third and new osprey nest, just 26 miles from the Dyfi nest as the osprey flies, has produced one chick this year - a male. That's five young ospreys in all this year from three nests, surviving through in the most hideous of conditions, and four of them are males. It is male ospreys that tend to come back close to where they were born to set up nests of their own, once they are old enough.

Ceulan will fledge in around a week's time - probably next weekend (Sunday is my bet). As we placed him back in the bag to return him to his nest yesterday, I was struck by two things: how warm he was and how orange his eyes were. Then I thought - I wonder if he remembers me? Probably not, it doesn't matter, I just hope I see him again in two or three years time, only not so close next time.

A huge thanks to Roy and Tony once again.

Mother and son were soon reunited in the nest