Boring Turns to Hot

Well, 'boring' last week has turned to 'hot' this week.

With temperatures hovering close to 30°C (86°F) every day, it's been one of the hottest spells we've ever seen at DOP, almost 1976-like. Remember that?

Today Bob 2 is four weeks old and the youngsters are now starting to resemble proper ospreys, their adult feathers growing apace. We can see their 'pin feathers' now too - these look somewhat like a feather shaft, however, unlike a fully developed feather, the pin feather has a blood supply flowing through it.

Feather development is now 'in pin'

Their feet are resembling smaller versions of adult feet now also, helping the chicks become more mobile in the nest. They can just about walk around now, albeit on their knees (technically ankles) most of the time.

Miniature fish-catching feet

This week we got a great view of Monty approaching the nest from an odd angle. With a slight easterly breeze, Monty landed from the camera side of the nest into the wind - giving us great views of his wingspan.

Osprey wingspan, a large female can reach 6 feet tip-to-tip

Ringing

As I write, the three chicks are 27, 28 and 29 days old. We'll ring the chicks when they're around five weeks old, so in another week or so. As per normal, we won't disclose the date/time beforehand as this is dependent on a lot of things - weather, tide range, availability of the ringer - but we will let people know on the Live Chat when the ringing has started.

The Live Streaming will go off for an hour or so and there will be a full ringing video produced within 24 hours of the event. We'll also name the chicks in the usual way - after Welsh rivers and lakes and, if we can drag him away from his Pimms, Posh Pete will be on hand to do the pronunciation test.

The rings will be blue with white lettering and be placed on the right leg as they do in England; Scottish birds are ringed on the left leg. The digits will be placed reading up from the foot, like this...

Tegid

Tegid has been back again this afternoon!

It's been almost six weeks since we first saw him on the Dyfi nest as a returning adult, since then he has just celebrated his 2nd birthday. We don't know for sure, but it seems very likely that it's Tegid we've seen a few times as an intruder over the last month or so.

Thankfully Greg, one of our hawk-eyed DOP volunteers, had his camera with him whilst on shift in the Observatory today and managed to get a few snaps of Tegid - well done Greg.

Blue Z1 - it's Tegid flying over his ancestral nest earlier today

Extreme close-up of Tegid's leg ring

Here's a side-on view...

Several of Tegid's flight feathers are in varying stages of moulting and replacement. We're pretty sure we've seen this moulting pattern on intruding ospreys over the last couple of weeks.

INTRUDER!! - it's our half-brother...

And Finally

So, here's the interesting thing.....

Tegid wasn't alone - he had another male in-tow; a rather pale looking individual. We couldn't see any rings on him.

But Tegid was acting like this other male was intruding into his territory, chipping and intruder-calling at him. Why would he do that?

Tegid chases after another male...

Has Tegid settled down close-by? Is he forming his own territory?

A second nest platform we erected to replace the one we took down in 2017 (it was too close to the main nest)

It promises to be an interesting few weeks, especially now we've had a good look at Tegid's plumage and moulting pattern. He won't need to come as close or to have Greg in the Observatory next time to make an ID!

Maybe Tegid had read the Filo-pastry book after all?

Will he be the first-ever recorded Welsh osprey to set up a nest site in his native country?

July 2016 - two years on and Tegid is back. For good...?