August 22, 2005
Fledgling Update
We can safely say that the mother osprey has left the Refuge. Still no sign of her, and there is no way she would have stayed away from the chicks this long unless she was migrating.
As of today, both chicks are just over 10 weeks old. In the last few nights since the mother left, we noticed Thunder had taken to roosting in the trees at night, leaving Lightning at the nest alone. However, last night Thunder decided to come back and spend part of the night at the nest. Nevertheless, it's clear that Thunder is claiming her independence much more quickly than Lightning.
Speaking of the "her" -- if we had to speculate at this point now that the chicks are almost fully grown, I think we could take an educated guess that the oldest, Thunder, might be a female (based on her size and "necklace"), and the youngest, Lightning, might be a male (based on his smaller size and white chest).
Lightning -- our possible male -- is proving to be a "homebody" chick, meaning he's the kind that doesn't want to go out and claim his independence. It's frustrating to watch him because we worry that he is hungry, but it's important to remember that from what we can tell, he has it in him to go out and get his own meals. Learning to fish is instinctual -- just like learning to fly -- and chicks can fish from between two days to three weeks after they are flying. Unfortunately, Lightning is choosing to stay at the nest and beg dad (when he passes by) for food.
Although we don't want him to be hungry, hunger might be the only thing that motivates him to move his little behind out of the nest and into the marsh. Since dad is only bringing a few fish and since Thunder is not big on sharing, Lightning will hopefully get motivated by hunger to go out and develop the fishing skills he desperately needs before migration. We'll keep our fingers crossed that he does that soon.
On a slightly different topic, I was looking through the Galleries recently, and I noticed that the platform nest has gone through some rather remarkable changes this season. If you look at this Nest Evolution photo set you can see how the nest looked in four different months.
In the first shot we can see that when the adult ospreys arrived in March, the winter weather had removed most of the sticks. The adults added quite a lot of material to prepare it for the eggs, and then once the eggs hatched, the parents built up a small wall of twigs around the perimeter so that the wandering chicks wouldn't tumble over the edge. And finally, after the osprey young became fledglings, the nest no longer looked like a place where vulnerable little chicks lived but instead looked like a place where a fully grown family lived.
Also, one cam watcher has asked why the eagles would be interested in the osprey platform if it's not a place where they would nest. It's true that the bald eagles would never nest at the platform -- it's not in a tree, it's not deep enough, and it's too close to people -- but the eagles, and several other species of birds, enjoy using the platform as a perching place. It's the highest structure along that area of the Blackwater River, so it makes a good place to eat a meal and check out the Refuge. You can see some wonderful photos in our 2004 Gallery of the eagles taking over the platform in September of last year, right after the ospreys left.
As for this year's family, since the mother osprey looks like she is the first to leave for migration, in the next web log we'll talk about where she is likely heading.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster