It has been a difficult few weeks for us, coming to terms with the realisation that for the first time in 22 breeding seasons we would not see any chicks hatch on the Glaslyn nest. Until this year we had only ever had two failed nesting attempts, in 2004 when the original Osprey built nest collapsed during a storm killing the two young chicks and 2021 when the three newly hatched chicks died after Aran was injured during an unseasonal storm and was unable to provide fish. We will return to that particular subject later in the blog.
Although we observed matings between Teifi and Elen they were not as frequent as we expected and Elen rejected more mating attempts than she accepted. By the middle of May, the two Ospreys were spending most of their time in trees around half a mile from the nest and nearer to the Visitor Centre and we observed half-hearted attempts at building a “frustration nest” in a totally unsuitable tree. It isn’t uncommon for Ospreys to attempt to build a ‘frustration nest’ in response to their failure to breed. Frustration nests are usually of poor construction and birds generally do not use this nest for breeding in future years. We have not seen them using these trees for over two weeks now and they have been spending more time around the Glaslyn nest defending it from intruders.
There has not been much intruder activity recently. On most of the occasions we have observed an intruder at Pont Croesor we have been fairly sure it has been either, Elen, Teifi or Aran paying a curiosity visit. On at least three occasions we believe Aran has checked out the Glaslyn nest territory. During one of these occasions the intruder circled for ten minutes before heading in the direction of the area where we know Aran is currently located. It was confirmed that Aran was not present at this site at the time. We were surprised to note that Teifi did not challenge the intruder and flew away after four minutes, leaving Elen to defend the nest alone. We witnessed a similar behaviour during two other intruder events, but as Teifi has seen off intruders on other occasions this behaviour seemed odd.
A ringed intruder visited the Glaslyn nest on June 3 during strong winds. Frustratingly, we were unable to read the ring number due to the constant movement of leaves which resulted in a failure of the camera to focus. Teifi had just arrived on the nest with a fish when the intruder appeared and he did not challenge the intruder when it landed on the oak perch next to Elen. This male Osprey behaved as though he belonged there, so much so that Elen appeared quite comfortable in his company. They sat alongside one another on the oak perch for ten minutes while Teifi left the nest making a display call. The head and chest markings of the Osprey looked incredibly similar to those of Blue 499 when he made his first appearance at the Dyfi nest on May 20. He has quite a distinctive dark chest for a male, (probably inherited from his mother Mrs G) and his head has a tulip pattern on the top, not unlike Aran’s. Blue 499 is from the 2022 season and the youngest chick from Mrs G and Aran’s final brood together. We were only able to view the BTO ring and the digits were too blurred to read with certainty. He would not turn around for us to see the coloured Darvic ring!
Blue 499 was sighted at Dyfi a second time on May 27 and was present on Anglesey on June 1, so he was known to be in the locality around the time of our possible sighting. Unfortunately, we will never be certain as to whether it was him visiting his home territory.
Finally, we return to the subject where this blog began, Aran. We were very surprised that Aran did not make another challenge to regain the Glaslyn nest from Teifi. Aran is a determined bird and has never been an Osprey to back down in a territorial dispute. It caused problems when he tried to defend both the Glaslyn and Pont Croesor nest territories, when 5F was present on the Pont Croesor nest between 2016 and 2019. During this time we saw him in conflicts with various males. When Kath Keir first observed him near her home and shared photos of him there, one photo received a comment questioning whether his wing was drooping, we could not be certain and did not want to concern people unnecessarily, but we did feel it looked more exaggerated than usual in that photo. It was taken the day after volunteer Gail Edgley observed three Ospreys in a dispute towards the Dwyryd estuary and we know that both Teifi and Aeron were present at the Glaslyn and Pont Croesor nests during that time.
Although Aran made a full recovery from his wing injury by the end of the 2021 breeding season, the slight gap at the end of his right wing is noticeable and the end of his wing does have a slight tendency to droop to a degree when perched. However, he has made eight successful migrations and provided for three separate broods since the incident in 2021, which means it cannot be affecting his abilities greatly.
Aran is clearly fishing without any issues, he caught four fish on the day that Kath first identified him, which suggested that he needed to feed up and get some well-earned rest. We suspect that the constant battles with various intruders, including Teifi, immediately following his long migration aggravated the weakness in his wing. Aran probably had no choice but to rest up if he wanted to survive to fight another day. Gail videoed him a couple of weeks ago and we noted his flight looked slightly more “flappy” than normal and similar to how it looked in 2021 a few weeks after he was injured. His slightly different flight pattern made him identifiable from other Ospreys.
Last week we observed Aran over Pont Croesor again and noted that the tip of his wing was flapping up slightly in flight. Gail made a video of his visit during her volunteering shift at the hide and on another occasion later in the week a visitor photographed his underwing as he passed overhead showing the gap. We are seeing him more regularly down in the valley which indicates the rest has aided his recovery. Aran recovered fully in 2021 and can recover again. He is unlikely to challenge for the Glaslyn nest again at this late stage in the breeding season as he will know that the chance to breed has gone, but we would not be at all surprised if he were to put in another appearance on the Glaslyn nest in 2025 and who knows what 2026 will bring!
Thank you to Gail Edgley and Tony Pope for allowing us to share their images in this blog.