Archive Footage

A busy couple of minutes on the nest. The resident male opens the clip by departing holding a fish that was brought for his mate. Two females are just out of camera shot - his mate then replaces him on the nest having just missed lunch. She is obviously agitated as a visiting osprey threatens the nest and territory. Intruder female Blue 5H1 then makes an attempt to land but she holds firm. On a second pass 5H1 does land briefly but our female makes a rush at her to knock her off the nest. This intruder was one of the first chicks to fledge from the Poole Harbour re-introduction project in 2022. Considering there were no eggs or chicks of her own to protect our female does an impressive job in keeping her off - in fact this intruding Poole female was a typical 2yr old of 'no fixed abode' as she visited the Talybont nest on three more occasions over the next fortnight and received short shrift every time.lining.

The male is on the nest mantling and very agitated, looking up and around. He flies off and the female arrives similarly agitated making herself appear even larger by mantling to dissuade any attempt at landing by the intruder overhead. She makes the 'ti-oop' alarm call from the nest to back that up. In the background there are brief glimpses of an aerial chase, our male doing his best to chase off the visitor from the nest area. Between them they succeed.

The Talybont unringed male lands on the nest and appears aware of another osprey close by. He shortly flies off seemingly almost complicit to this visitor coming for a closer look at the nest. The intruder now lands on the nest to identify himself - Blue 698, a 2yr old male hatched in the Tweed Valley in 2022. This is one of 5 or 6 2yr old birds to be identified in the Talybont area during summer 2024 as birds of this age tour the country to identify potential areas in which to set up a future breeding territory. He has a good look around, always on edge should a resident bird return, including studying the nestcam and its mounting.

The male is attempting some nest lining tidying and re-arranging but the gusting wind makes this a tricky exercise. The wind even briefly inverts a covert feather on the left wing, until the bird turns and it falls back into position. There was some concern a month or more ago when the male brought to the nest a length of old silage wrap picked up from the flood debris by the River Usk. For a few hours it did flap around the top of the nest but the continued arrival of further sticks means it is now deep within the nest. A piece can still be seen nearest to the camera.

On a misty morning the female calls to be fed from the nest. The male though has different ideas and continues to build up the nest. At all osprey nests this is a continuous task with the male taking most of the nest-building duties. Large amounts of softer nest-linings have been brought in over recent days as well as sticks of differing sizes and it is clear the nest needs a bit of arranging. The nest is now becoming a prominent feature in the landscape so over the summer no real surprises that it attracts attention from passing ospreys and many other species in the locality.

Blue 555, a 2yr old male from Llyn Clywedog touches down apparently unchallenged. He does, however, appear to be nervous so does not stick around perhaps seeing one of the resident pair arriving to challenge him. He only made that one brief visit.