A tiny baby bird's life was on a knife's edge as it shivered in a storm-lashed nest.

The downpour was so violent it had felled power lines, flooded roads and cut off whole villages.

The hungry baby osprey was so exhausted it could not even raise the strength to lift its head and feed.

And the heartbreaking plight of the chick posed a real dilemma for naturalist Emyr Evans.

The osprey is one of Britain's rarest birds of prey and letting nature take its course could have meant the death of the chick.

Emyr had already seen two other young ospreys in the nest die and this male was the only hope for a breeding project which had taken nine years' hard work. But if he intervened the surviving chick's parents could abandon it. Such a move on his part would not only be frowned on but was also unprecedented.

Emyr decided he could not let the third chick, which had been named Ceulan, perish.

He said: "We could see he was barely alive. His breathing was very shallow. If Ceulan had died his parents might never have returned to mate there again. All our efforts to reintroduce ospreys to the wild here for the first time in 400 years hung on his survival."

Watching alive stream from four HD cameras trained on the ospreys' specially-built nest on the Dyfi estuary in mid Wales, Emyr made the decision to act. Racing to the nest, he used a nine-metre ladder to reach 11-dayold Ceulan and wrap him in a fluffy blue towel.

Back on the ground he carefully fed him chunks of fresh trout as the baby's worried mum circled overhead, calling to her chick all the time.

Soaring: Ceulan in full flight

Emyr returned Ceulan to the nest after just 28 minutes and retreated to a safe distance just hoping his parents would return to care for it.

He said: "Within five minutes his mother, Nora, was back on the nest and feeding him.

"It was such a relief. We watched them very carefully and luckily he went from strength to strength."

That half-hour of help has paid massive dividends.

A few days ago tagged Ceulan - pronounced Kaylan and named after one of the flooded local rivers - finally left the nest for good and has been tracked by satellite tag to Portugal. He is on a 2,600 mile trip to Senegal in West Africa, where he will spend the next two years.

Emyr said: "If he survives he'll return to this area to breed and help create the next generation - 400 years after they were persecuted to near extinction." Ospreys were a common sight in medieval Britain but as they eat fish were hunted down and wiped out to protect river stocks.

The last recorded breeding pair in Dyfi were seen in 1604.

The RSPB currently estimates there are 250 to 300 pairs in Britain, mainly concentrated in Scotland.


Some ospreys had been seen returning to mid Wales on their annual migration. In 2007 the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust built a nest - ospreys don't build their own but steal or inherit them - but it took a year for a male called Monty to make it his own, and another three for him to find a mate, Nora.

Last year they raised three chicks successfully but this year terrible weather brought tragedy soon after a new clutch of three eggs hatched at the end of May.

Volunteers watched via the cameras as two of the chicks, drenched and freezing, slumped in the bottom of the nest. Unless they raise their beaks to beg, their parents do not feed them.

With just Ceulan left alive after 36 hours of rain - and looking certain to go the same way as his siblings - intervention was vital if Monty and Nora were to have any chicks this year.

If they failed to breed successfully they could look for a different nest and the Dyfi would lose its magnificent predators once again. Luckily for them, they picked an area where volunteers

If they failed to breed successfully y could look for a different nest and Dyfi would lose its magnificent dators once again. Luckily for them, picked an area where volunteers fund raise to help the trust pay for cameras and people such as project manager Emyr. They raised £30,000 for the high-definition cameras, making Monty and Nora's nest one of the best shot in the world.

Footage is streamed live, along with daily blogs, on the trust's website which has 20million visitors a year.


There they can also see the latest data from Ceulan's satellite tracker, and keep a remote eye on him until he returns to his birthplace in 2014 to raise a family under the watchful online gaze of fans worldwide.

Emyr said: "Ospreys are the missing piece of the jigsaw in this part of the world.

"They're a part of the ecosystem which was rendered extinct but their habitats, their food, are still here waiting for them. Without them, this part of Wales just isn't complete."

** Track Ceulan and donate online at www.dyfiospreyproject.com