The 2024 Glaslyn Osprey season did not end in the way that we had hoped. On Saturday 31 August we suddenly, and unexpectedly lost connection to all of our equipment at the Glaslyn nest end and all our efforts to reboot the system failed. Further investigations revealed that agricultural machinery working in the field surrounding the nest had accidentally cut through the power supply from the nest to the Protection Caban. It soon became apparent that the cable was beyond repair and would require a complete replacement.
Fortunately, the Glaslyn nest can be seen from our camera at Pont Croesor, albeit at a distance of 2km, so we turned the camera towards the Glaslyn nest to continue live streaming and keep track of what was happening with our remaining birds. Volunteer Gail Edgley assisted by putting in several hours at the Protection Site forward hide, so that she could identify which birds were still present and film the Glaslyn family with her camera.
The last sighting of Elen was on Monday 26 August at 13:44, after she delivered a headless Mackerel to 6M7. We last saw middle chick 6M7 on Friday 30 August at 10:26. She was a confident youngster and had been regularly returning to the nest with wet feathers, presumably from practice dives into the local rivers. Possibly, she was one of the two juveniles perched in a dead tree on the bank of the Afon Glaslyn near Ynysferlas, spotted by a local resident in the days leading up to her departure.
The two other chicks 6M8 and 6M9, were both positively identified on Saturday 31 August before the cameras went off. Aran delivered a Sea Bass to 6M8 during the morning and she took it to eat in a tree near to Pont Croesor. We were watching her eating it on the live stream when we lost connection to the cameras.
We last saw three birds around the nest just before 9am on Friday 6 September. Our last sighting of an Osprey at the nest site was at 09:10 that day, which we believe was one of the two chicks. After spending some time at the nest site without seeing an Osprey Gail decided to turn her attention to the estuary, at a location where she had previously seen Aran. She soon found an Osprey eating a fish on a post and although she could not be completely sure that it was Aran, there was a noticeable gap in the right wing. The scene was reminiscent of the images we see of Ospreys in their winter homes, in Gambia and Senegal and Gail watched the Osprey until the sun went down. It would be wonderful to think that this was Aran, taking a well-earned rest and easing himself back into winter mode as he prepared for his migration south.
The Osprey family at the Friends of the Ospreys nest at Pont Croesor left a little earlier than the Glaslyn family. Our last sighting of Blue 014 was at 17:42 on Wednesday 14 August, she had spent the hour prior to her last sighting preening on the perch. The last recorded sighting of Z2/Aeron was on Friday 30 August, when he delivered a Flounder to his son, 5M0 at 17:39. The last sighting of 5M0 was early the following morning. He had been sitting on the perch when an intruding Osprey appeared and divebombed him on the nest several times. 5M0 finally left the nest at 06:28 and that was the last time he was spotted by our cameras. It is possible that both Z2 and 5M0 were still around beyond these times, but out of view of our cameras and volunteers.
The final osprey sighting of the year, on Monday 16 September, was live streamed from the Pont Croesor camera. A male Osprey landed in a dead tree on the banks of the Afon Glaslyn, a site favoured last September by KS6/Dinas so it was possibly him again. He headed towards the Dwyryd estuary at 14:33, only to briefly return at 18:59 to the dead tree before vanishing from view.
Unfortunately, our technical issues have continued, and it is increasingly likely that we will need to undertake a major overhaul of our communications over the winter at both the Pont Croesor and Protection sites to futureproof our systems. We will keep you informed of any further developments over the winter months.
Thanks very much to you all for your continued support and generosity. We could not survive without you. Diolch yn fawr.