August 14, 2005
Another Fledgling
The Contest: I know that the Fish & Wildlife Service staff members are still looking over the many names we got for the Chick-Naming Contest. I've asked them to give us a date for the final decision, and I'll pass that along when I have it.
Nest Update: We had some excitement and worry Saturday evening after the youngest chick took its first flight at around 7:15pm. The youngest was gone for a very long time along with the mother. Finally an osprey appeared, but it looked like the oldest chick with still no sign of mom. Then finally Sunday morning, the mother and two chicks were spotted together in the nest.
Normally first flights do not last very long, so we have to wonder if the youngest got stuck on the ground and had trouble getting back up to the nest. Sometimes young ospreys will rest on the ground if they have trouble immediately returning. The fact that the mother seemed to be gone the whole time, too, makes us wonder if she was staying with the youngest until it could return. But all was well this morning when we could clearly see that the three were reunited at the nest.
So it's good news that the youngest is flying, although Sunday morning the youngest didn't seem terribly eager for another adventure.
Speaking of the family, we did see a shot of the father on Saturday. He has been missing-in-action a lot these days, but occasionally shows up to touch base. Once the mother leaves on migration, we'll have to see if that makes him more attentive to the chicks since it will then be his responsibility to keep an eye on them.
As for migration, our cam family has been a bit behind in everything they've done this season -- they were late taking over the nest and they were late laying their eggs -- so it's clear the family will likely be late in leaving for migration. Normally the family is gone by the end of August, but it doesn't seem possible for them to stick to that schedule this year.
But while we're watching our ospreys catch up to the other families, we can still follow some of the migration action as it occurs elsewhere, and mid-August is when the migration season unofficially gets underway. On the East Coast of the U.S. there are a few places known for being migration bottlenecks, which simply means that due to their land and water features, they are popular aerial "highways" that many birds use to migrate south.
Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania is one of those places and is known for being a favorite "highway" for raptors including bald eagles and ospreys. Hawk Mountain's story is an interesting one. In the early part of the 1900s, Kittatinny Ridge (part of the East Coast's Appalachian ridge) became a hunters' paradise as the shooters would line up on the mountain to injure and kill thousands of unsuspecting raptors as they migrated south. In 1934, conservationist Rosalie Edge acquired land in Pennsylvania where most of the slaughter was occurring, and a few years later this land became Hawk Mountain Sanctuary -- the first raptor refuge in the world.
Hawk Mountain's "Autumn Hawkwatch" season begins on August 15. You can visit their website to keep track of the bird counts and to learn more about their educational and conservation efforts. And if you can ever manage a trip to Hawk Mountain during migration season -- during which the raptor count can reach 20,000 -- I highly recommend it.
But even if you can't go, be sure to visit their migration page to learn more about raptor migration and to see a calendar showing when the different raptor species are likely to appear.
For the record, in their 2004 "Autumn Hawkwatch" season, they counted 672 ospreys passing over the sanctuary, the first being spotted in mid-August and the largest amount (187) passing through during the week of Sept. 18, 2004, as the birds made their way to Central and South America.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster