It has been a long and complicated few weeks of Osprey watching at the Glaslyn nest, with more twists and turns than a soap opera plot and the drama does not look to be over yet!
Once Aran returned on April 12 he initially regained “ownership” of the nest from KC6/Teifi, who had been with Elen since April 2. Since his return however, there has been a regular influx of intruding Ospreys, only two of which were known local nesting birds. The regular intrusions at the Glaslyn nest caused Aran to defend his territory, which in turn gave Teifi the opportunity to regain the Glaslyn nest on April 18.
Elen laid her first egg on April 13, followed by a second on April 16 and third on April 19. It would be impossible to know which one of the two males had potentially fertilised the eggs as Elen was receptive to both males mating with her. Elen buried the first egg under nesting material on April 14. On April 18 Teifi began nest scraping and partly exposed the buried first egg. Then on April 21 he began nest scraping again and attempted to remove the remaining two eggs from the nest. Egg 3 was the first to be broken followed by egg 2 later that day. The first egg laid was totally uncovered during this time and ended up on the side of the nest.
On April 21 Aran began his campaign to win back the Glaslyn nest from Teifi. He began by displaying and flying high above the nest on several occasions that afternoon, then the following afternoon he began aggressively divebombing Teifi on the nest. Forcing him to leave the nest several times. Aran continued the battle the following morning and even managed to catch a large Mullet and deliver it to Elen while being pursued by Teifi! By the evening of April 23 Aran had regained the Glaslyn nest from Teifi. However, at 14:17 that afternoon Elen laid a fourth egg, which added another element to the drama. Aran did not attempt to damage the egg, but he did not attempt to incubate it either. He continued to provide fish for Elen and mate with her, although she was not always receptive to him. We saw Teifi return to the nest several times during this period, but Aran always managed to drive him away.
On May 1 the next phase of the battle commenced. Teifi divebombed Aran on the nest several times and Aran was repeatedly forced to chase him away. Aran did not bring a fish back for Elen that day, although he appeared to have eaten himself. Aran returned to the nest at 04:48 the following morning only to be flapped away by Elen and an hour later Elen made the intruder call as Teifi hovered over her holding nesting material. Teifi was spotted intruding again several times, but there was no sign of Aran. At 10:46 Blue 498 briefly landed only to be pushed away by Elen. Our next sighting of Aran was at 13:34 when Aran briefly landed on the nest only to be divebombed off again by Teifi. The two males continued their dispute high above the valley for some time.
Shortly afterwards Blue 721 made his second appearance of the season at Glaslyn when he flew over the nest carrying nesting material before landing on the old communications pole next to the forward hide. That evening Teifi displayed above the Glaslyn nest with a Grey Mullet. He did not share the fish with Elen, but roosted close to the nest overnight and by the following morning he had rejoined Elen on the nest. Elen was still incubating her fourth egg at this point, although she appeared to be losing interest in it. On May 4 Teifi made several attempts to remove the remaining egg and by mid-morning it had been buried beneath nesting material. Elen did not attempt to dig it out this time. Teifi and Elen have remained together through the week and there have been some successful mating attempts, but whether we will see any more eggs on the Glaslyn nest this season is debatable.
In the meantime, we were very fortunate to receive information regarding the whereabouts of Aran from Kath Keir, who looked after the Glaslyn Osprey Adoptions for several years.
On May 4 Kath photographed an Osprey on a fence post near to her home and she felt sure it was Aran. We looked at the photos Kath had taken and we felt certain that it was him.
Aran has remained in the same area for the past few days. He is fishing for himself and does not appear to be injured. It is still too early to say whether he will attempt to return to the Glaslyn nest or whether he will remain in this location, which he knows very well.
We can only continue to observe and study the lives of these incredible birds.
