Everyone's favourite bird returns early..

Just when you're being discharged from the osprey-rehabilitation clinic following one hectic breeding season, you're instantly thrown head-first right into the next one.

After continued problems with the Infared equipment not working on the nest (crucial to see at night time), we finally got everything sorted yesterday evening. A few hours into the following morning - look who's back...

Blue 24 is back early, 25th March, but it seems that many ospreys are returning earlier than usual this year. The Glaslyn female, Dai Dot, and his partner have all returned to their Welsh nests this week, as have many birds at Rutland and Scotland. Glesni's mum is back (Green 5N) as is Blue 24's sister, Blue 25, whilst further north (Glaslyn's) Yellow 37 is back at Kielder, EJ is back at Loch Garten and both birds have returned to their Scottish Wildlife Trust's nest at Loch of the Lowes.

Blue 24 stayed for around an hour on the nest this morning, bringing in half a dozen twigs before eventually disappearing southeast. No doubt she will be searching all the nests that she knows about from previous years and will again be looking for a suitable male, nest, and hopefully this year, some luck.

Born in Rutland in 2010, she will be six years old this summer - let's hope she finally finds what she is looking for - she deserves it.

Blue 24 on the Dyfi nest perch, 25th March 2016