• 25^th MARCH: TELYN arrived 19:29
• 30^th MARCH: IDRIS arrived 09:49

Telyn beats her previous record (2021) by one day while Idris matched his earliest arrival time he set in 2023.

This is Telyn's seventh year at the Dyfi and Idris' fifth. 

By now they are an established pair which could explain their respective punctual return. We would eggspect the first egg to be laid at around 10th April onwards.

The short video of Telyn arriving in the dark is here, whilst below is the video of Idris returning yesterday. As often happens, Idris brought another male with him to the nest, which confused all of us for a while, including Telyn!

He was a ringed bird too - he's visited before...

Do you re-furbish the nest in preparation of the ospreys returning?

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: No, because....

With Telyn and Idris having returned, they have a lot of work to do.

Think of most birds as existing in two distinct modes throughout the year: breeding and non-breeding phases. A few days ago our ospreys were in non-breeding mode; their behaviour will be materially different now they are back together again and quickly transitioning into breeding mode.

During winter, groups of ospreys will be much more tolerant of each other, often roosting and perching close together, sometimes dozens of ospreys colonially aligning fence posts just a few feet apart. There's not much to get possessive about. They even share food.

Now Telyn and Idris are back on the Dyfi, however, they need to very quickly change modes. As soon as they see their nest again after seven months away, they'll need to do two main things, quickly:

1. Assert their old nest back as theirs (as Telyn did in the video above)

2. Assess each other's condition and fitness to be a suitable mate

Failure to do one of these things properly could mean a lost year of breeding.

Now quickly transitioning back to breeding mode, both male and female will take approximately two weeks to suss each other out before laying eggs – and one of the main, critical ways of doing this is nest-building as a team.

Ospreys are great architects and builders, but if the female sees a weakness in the male, especially, this could either delay or even kibosh the whole partnership. Anatomically, a female osprey has only a short window every year to get this decision right.

Nest building is a critical behavioural element of pair-bonding, particularly in this early pre-egg laying stage.

Granted, it's not quite as visible to us as grebes dancing and head-shaking, birds of paradise moon-walking or peacocks strutting their oversized tail feathers, but nest-building serves the exact same function. It's a way for a pair of birds to quickly establish their commitment to each other – a short-cut to spending weeks or months 'courting'.

It's like being out in Caernarfon on a Saturday night. Your next decision could be one of the most important of your life, resulting in a good mate for years to come (but probably not).

So, we don't interfere with this process. After all, ospreys have been returning to non-human refurbished nests for millions of years over five continents. They seem to have done alright without our help.

In any case - what a human thinks of what an osprey nest should look like may be significantly different to what an osprey thinks it should.