April 09, 2006
A New Season
Nest Update: Since our couple looks very organized and could likely lay eggs soon, we thought it would be a good time to start the Osprey Cam Web Log for 2006.
A Brief History of the
Blackwater Osprey Cam
For those who are new to our Osprey Cam, this is our sixth year with the ospreys on the Internet. Altogether we've watched eight chicks hatch and fledge since 2001.
Unlike the bald eagles, the ospreys do not stay at Blackwater Refuge all year. Ospreys are almost exclusively fish eaters, so they migrate south for the winter, since fish are hard to find in cold or frozen water. They leave us in September and return in March. Our ospreys probably winter in Central or South America.
For the first four years that we were on the Internet, we had what appeared to be the same reliable osprey couple at the nest, and last year that couple returned to us and quickly began building up the platform nest for another season. But then suddenly they up and left for another location at the Refuge.
Later we heard that there was another nest that had been taken down and then restored last year, and our couple may have nested there before we built the cam platform. It seemed the couple remembered their old residence and made the move. After they did this, several other osprey couples battled over our cam platform, and the couple that won spent the rest of the season on the cam nest. That pair went on to produce two fledglings, which we named Thunder and Lightning, since the family sat through a lot of turbulent weather last summer.
So this year as we watch the cam, we naturally wonder who is back at the nest -- couple #1 or couple #2. We honestly don't know. We can say that this year's female has a bigger "necklace" -- the brown coloring on a female's chest -- than last year's mother, which was a bird that possessed a very faint necklace. So we may have a different mother, or she may in fact be the original mother that occupied the nest the first four years on the cam.
As for the father, we don't know which male we have this year, but we hope he is an improvement over last year's male. In 2005, we saw our first real chick aggression at the cam nest, and it seemed to stem from the fact that the father was disappearing for most of the day and not delivering enough fish. There are plenty of fish at Blackwater -- the female certainly found them -- so we gathered that our male was either a bit distracted or was a new father that didn't know how to feed a big family.
The Osprey Cam Location
Several cam watchers have asked about the location of the Osprey Cam. The birds are on a tall land platform that we built specifically for them. Behind them is a water impoundment area where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can control the amount of rainwater that collects (2006 has been very dry). In the distance, you can see the Visitor Center building. If you were standing on the platform looking behind the camera, you'd see the Blackwater River -- where our raptors get many of their meals. At ground level, the platform is near a small pond area where herons, ducks and turtles hang out. Sometimes you see the ospreys looking down at them.
Visitors to our Wildlife Drive at the Refuge can drive right by the Osprey Cam platform and see the ospreys, which are just off the road. Fortunately, ospreys are more flexible about nesting near people than bald eagles are, and the ospreys don't seem to mind hikers, cyclists, and cars going by their platform all day. There is a service road that leads to the platform -- we just ask that folks stay off that road so the ospreys don't get spooked. This photo shows what the ospreys look like when they're watching people on the Drive.
If you'd like to see some photos showing how we installed the cam, visit our Installation page. The platform is very high, and we have to use a bucket truck to get to it. Although the ospreys are more flexible about human visitors, we have to rent the bucket truck from a local company before we can go up, so acquiring it is a big deal and we usually reserve that for emergencies with the cam equipment.
If you have more questions about the Osprey Cam, you might want to read our Osprey Cam Q&A page.
Nesting Action
If you've been watching the action at the nest or looking at our Gallery lately, you've undoubtedly noticed a lot of mating maneuvers. Osprey biologists report that couples might mate 60-160 times during a nesting season. Obviously not all of them are successful, since ospreys lay an average of 2-3 eggs in a nest.
Beyond prodigious mating, the osprey couple seems to be bonding nicely in other ways as well. They've both contributed to the nest building, and the male has been dropping off fish for the female to eat -- a ritual that assures her that he will be a good provider. On Thursday morning he dropped off a fish for her, and then proceeded to do a little nest maintenance himself as he used his chest to mold the nest cup. As for the female, we've occasionally seen her roosting at the platform at night, while the male roosts in a nearby tree. All these signs seem to point to a couple that will likely lay eggs in the near future.
And a final note about our setup: Some cam watchers have probably seen the tape flapping across the lens -- at night it looks rather ghostly. The tape was placed there last season to secure the cam, but it has now worked itself loose. We had planned to remove it before the ospreys arrived, but our cam technician hurt his ankle and had to forgo a trip up to the platform. The tape only appears when the wind is right but then it vanishes. If it doesn't rip off, then we'll remove it the next time we make a maintenance visit to the nest.
We thank you for joining us for another year of the ospreys. The fish hawks have their own unique habits and personalities, and always provide lots of entertaining cam watching for our website visitors. Hopefully they will deliver a chick or two for us to share with you this nesting season.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)