July 15, 2006
Map & Photos
Nest Update: As our regular cam watchers can attest, the last week has been filled with somewhat frustrating moments where we thought we saw a chick fledge, only to find that it was hiding behind mom or hiding on the far edge of the nest and out of view. Also, sometimes a chick would hover above the nest, but then land again without having taken a real flight.
It's hard to believe that four large chicks could hide so easily in such an exposed nest, but they do. The oldest chicks are eight weeks old, with the smallest chick being a few days younger, so they are definitely ready to fledge. We would expect one or more to go any day now, but we'll just have to be patient.
On Sunday, I plan to head down to the Refuge to videotape the nest from our Wildlife Drive and also to capture some video clips from the monitor, if the view remains relatively clear. So maybe if I'm lucky, a chick will decide to take a full flight tomorrow.
Also, one technical note: During our recent rainstorms, you might have noticed that the cam temporarily stops updating. Sometimes heavy rain will interfere with our satellite dish transmissions, so if you just give it some time, the images will start refreshing again once the rain lessens.
Geo Map:
I wanted to mention something kind of cool that I recently discovered. Google Analytics is a free service by Google whereby webmasters can find out useful information about their websites, such as what are the most popular pages, what types of browsers and platforms are visitors using to access the site, and what are the cities where visitors are located. None of the data reveals personal information about visitors, just general visitor statistics.
One of the more interesting features of the program is what Google calls their Geo Map, which shows approximately where in the world website visitors are located. This information is useful to webmasters who wish to know how much traffic they are pulling from outside their own country.
I've only been using Google Analytics for a couple days, but when I pulled up the Geo Map for our website, I was pleasantly surprised to see the many countries that are represented on our site, mainly because of the Osprey Cam. Keep in mind that this is only after a couple days, and I do believe we draw an even more diverse crowd for the Eagle Cam in the winter.
At the time I captured the map, here is what it looked like -- note that the dots can represent more than one person in a given area. The countries on the map where we had visitors are: Africa, Japan, China, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, United Kingdom, Brazil, and coast to coast in both Canada and the US, including several folks in Alaska.
So a big welcome to our many worldwide visitors. Everyone here is part of an international community -- a community of fellow osprey fans. :-)
Osprey Photography:
For me one of the great joys of running this website, and the raptor cams, is the way in which talented photographers generously share their photographs with me and with our cam watchers. Once again I'm lucky to have a pair of photographers who have sent me photos that I'd like to share.
As I've mentioned before, Russ Yeaton is monitoring an osprey nest at Spring Point Light in South Portland Maine, and Russ just sent a wonderful new photo that shows his local three-chick family. Note that there is a small bird -- possibly a house sparrow -- sitting on a branch under the nest. I'm not sure if the bird was just visiting, but sometimes ospreys will have other birds nesting in the bottom of their own nests -- especially if it's a deep nest. Apparently the smaller birds are not threatened by the fish-eating ospreys and may even benefit by nesting near a raptor that will help keep predators away.
In addition to Russ' photo, I also received some photos from Woody Dawson, who has supplied us with eagle photos in the past. This time Woody sent some osprey photos that he recently took at Blackwater Refuge. I already posted three of them on the cam page earlier (photos #1, #2, #3), which all show our Osprey Cam family on the platform.
Woody also took photos of one of our water platforms at the Refuge. Ospreys often prefer to nest over water because they like being near their food source and they feel safer away from land predators. Check out these three beautiful shots that also give a good view of our rivers and wetlands in the background (click on the thumbnails below):
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Something you might notice in these shots is how the chicks' eyes are red, while the parent's eyes are yellow. An osprey's eyes start out with red irises, but they change to yellow with increasing age.
Also, I wanted to highlight one behavioral shot that Woody captured at this same water platform. In past web logs I've mentioned how we can see a bird's crop -- the crop being the internal pouch that birds have on their chest where food is stored for later digestion. Even adults have crops, but often it's easier to see the crops on chicks since the younger birds don't have as many feathers. When a bird is ready to release food from the crop, so it can go down into the stomach, it moves its head from side to side, in a funny-looking motion. In falconer lingo this is called "putting over" the crop or "putting it away." In these two photos from Woody, you can see an osprey chick moving its head side to side as it empties -- or puts over -- its crop.
On the falconry website The Modern Apprentice, they have a short video clip showing a hawk putting over its crop. You can find it on this page -- just scroll down to the phrase "Put Over."
Thanks again to Russ and Woody for helping us learn more about ospreys through their wonderful photographs.
On a final topic: Our "Name the Chicks Contest" ended on Friday. Our staff at Blackwater Refuge will probably need about a week or two to sort through all the names. As soon as we have the winning four names, we'll announce them on the cam page and in the web log. Thanks to everyone for participating!
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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