On 29th June we ringed and named our three chicks. As many of you - and us - had predicted, we had three of the same gender. Not many of us thought they were three girls though! 

This is the first time that we've had three females in one clutch, not only on the Dyfi, but in Wales during modern times.

All three females stay absolutely still as Tony climbs the ladder to the nest.

Female ospreys are around 15% larger than males, so by the time they get to between four and five weeks old, we can start to see size differences in the chicks looking at the cameras.

Nest cameras only give a 2-D perspective though. Once we got all three birds down to the ground, they all looked around the same size - and HUGE.

So huge, in fact, Bobby Bach the younger of the three, is the heaviest chick we've ever had at this nest.

Here are the details:

Weighing up the Data

There are a couple of unusual metrics of note this year: The oldest chick is the lightest (by around 100g) and the youngest chick is the heaviest. This is generally opposite to what we'd normally expect. So, what explains this?

First of all, we made absolutely sure that we got the weights 100% correct. We double checked and triple checked. They really were 1695g, 1790g and 1830g. These weights are right in the middle-top end for females at this age; healthy males would be in the 1400g-1600g range.

A chick at this age can easily eat 100g worth of fish in just a few minutes - so this could easily explain why two birds are around 1800g and the other one 100g lighter. Then you've got to factor in normal variation within a population. Genetics could be at work - some birds are simply heavier/lighter than others.

Is there a chance that we had them in the wrong order? Well, possibly, but again we thoroughly checked this.

At the end of the day does it really matter? Of course not. We have three healthy - and very large - chicks. Telyn and Idris had done a fantastic job raising all three.

Mind you, would the fact that all three are females explain why we've witnessed a bit more aggression this year compared to previous years?

Chick Names

We conducted a quick poll on our Live Chat on the afternoon of the ringing. We wanted to know whether people preferred calling the chicks all by the same first letter, or mix them up. Personally, I find it easier to remember chicks' names by using alliteration: Tywi and Teifi for example, from 2020.

Almost a thousand of you voted in the end (thank you). Nearly two-thirds voted for alliteration, so that's what we did.

Here are their names along with a rough phonetic pronunciation:

• Pedran: PED-RAN
• Padarn: PAD-ARN
• Paith: Just say the first syllable in PYTHon 

Thank You

As always we'd like to thank Tony Cross for ringing our chicks for us again this year. Beyond professional.

Also to Colin and Jonah who helped with the ladders and other heavy stuff as well as Janine in the DOP office who kept 500 Live Streaming viewers up-to-date on proceedings in real time. And thank you also to all of you that sent your suggestions in for chick names based on Welsh rivers. We now have over 200 names in the pot - it should keep us going for a few years yet.

If you're wondering where the three rivers/lakes are in Wales this year, here is a map:

And Finally

Here is the ringing video for this year; we've called it 'Bendigedig'.

This blog and video is dedicated to DOP volunteer, Posh Pete (Peter Murdoch), who sadly passed away a few weeks ago. We miss him greatly and ringing this year was very strange without him.

You were very much in all our thoughts yesterday Pete. This one is for you, old boy:

Music: Myfanwy by Sheku Kanneh-Mason