Live Video From Nest

Osprey 496 flies in. Male 496 (blue leg-ring) was the first osprey to occupy the Usk Valley nest in 2024 arriving on 30th March. It did not build the nest in 2023. 496 was hatched at Llyn Clywedog north of Llanidloes in 2021. After its brief visit to Talybont on 30th March it visited its natal nest at Clywedog but had not been welcomed by the resident pair. It made several return visits to the Usk Valley and for a few uncontested weeks here he must have felt confident he could inherit it.

11 April 2024 496 on nest. Male '496' makes his second nest visit of the day, still uncontested - only one other osprey had been seen in the valley by 11th April that being an unringed female and she simply flew through. Note the poor state of the nest which had been further battered by another named storm, Kathleen, a few days earlier. Kathleen was the ninth storm of the 2023-24 winter. In this clip 496 appears to recognise this loss of sticks and shows some early house-keeping interest. Males generally do the majority of nest-building.

12 April 2024 496 with brown trout. Male 496 brings a live brown trout to consume on the nest. Ospreys are piscivorous and feed only on fish. A fish is normally consumed from the head back towards the tail.

12 April 2024 07.56 496 brings sticks. Male 496 (Clywedog 2021) shows more determination to build up this battered nest. The large timbers protruding through the nest are part of the supporting tree and are as visible today as they were in late-March. Note that the blue Darvic rings show numbering read up the leg; rings fitted in Welsh or English nests are on the right leg, and those at Scottish nests are on the left leg.

26 April 24 Resident male brings sticks. This unringed male was to become the resident male, remaining in the vicinity of the nest through to leaving the valley in early-September. Features of his plumage suggest this was the male that built the Talybont-on-Usk nest in 2023 and was back to reclaim it. He was first seen on the nest this year on 22nd April and over the four days since his return you can see how he has built up the nest already, the supporting tree limbs now obscured by freshly-laid sticks. Many of these sticks were snapped from the upper branches of the oaks to be seen in the tree-line behind the nest. Other sticks were collected from piles of flood debris by the River Usk.

29 April resident pair with sticks. 29th April was the arrival date for what was to become our 'resident' female. She too is unringed so we have no clues as to either bird's origins or age. The female, nearest to the camera, can be seen to be the larger bird with darker plumage and slightly heavier streaking on her head and across the breast. This is the first clip too that illustrates finer material brought in by the male for nest-lining (dried grasses and possibly a piece of dead conifer caught on the stick rim). The last few days of April is already late for any new pair to begin bonding together, this thought to have significance later in the breeding season. For 2025, we are planning to have an additional camera that will focus into the nest-cup.