July 31, 2006
Empty Nest
Nest Update: As our cam watchers could see on Monday, our youngest chick was out of the nest for a good part of the day -- marking his first extended forays from the nest.
Several days ago, we reported that the youngest had fledged, as he had briefly disappeared from our view on the Osprey Cam. Our bookstore manager, who has been keeping an eye on the TV monitor at the Visitor Center, told me a few days ago that the youngest had indeed flown, and on the monitor they had seen an empty nest at one point. After that first flight, the youngest had not seemingly flown again; however, today we see that the youngest is now venturing far away from the nest for long periods, and so we all have our first case of "empty nest syndrome."
I also wanted to report that our bookstore manager said she saw what she believed were all four chicks at the nest earlier last week -- but one chick was on the camera arm, which means it would have been impossible for us to see via the cam. If our manager was right -- and the fifth bird was not the father -- it would mean our four chicks are safe. We will continue to look for evidence that all four chicks are around, and we'll continue to look for shots of the father, who hasn't been around the cam as much since the chicks fledged, possibly because he's spending more time out in the Refuge with the flying young.
Contest
We have our four winning names for our "Name the Chicks" contest, but we are still waiting to hear from a couple of the winners, so we'll hold off on the name announcement until we get personal information from those individuals.
Weather
We're going through a very hot and humid patch here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; in fact, there is an "Excessive Heat Watch" issued from Tuesday through Thursday when the heat index could reach 112 degrees, so the fledglings might spend some time in the shade of nearby trees if the heat gets too bad or they might even take a dip in the water to cool off.
And speaking of taking a dip, I wanted to share some photos that our friend Bob Quinn recently took which show the Osprey Cam family in action.
In the first photo, a cam bird is sitting in the water, possibly out of a desire to cool off. In the second photo, one of our fledglings sits on a post nearby and watches the other osprey in the water.
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In the third and fourth photos, we see a fledgling coming into the cam nest for a landing.
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In the fifth photo, we see one of the cam birds in flight, and in the final photo we see a cam adult sitting on a dead tree with a fish meal.
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Bob reported that while he was near the platform, he saw three chicks at the nest and what looked like two adults around the nest. Much thanks to Bob for taking the time to photograph our cam birds so we could see them in their local environment.
General Osprey News
The Calgary Zoo in Canada has posted a live Osprey Cam where you can currently watch their two chicks in action. Also, be sure to read the log on the cam page so you can get caught up on all the interesting happenings at their nest this season.
I also wanted to point out some wonderful photos on the Osprey Watch website -- a fantastic website that I've linked to before -- which is run by photographer Bob Montanaro and features osprey photos from Pelican Island NWR in Florida. Bob has a series of shots showing a mob of crows going after an osprey, and also a series that shows an osprey threatening a Great blue heron. Thanks to Bob for publishing his amazing photos, which give us a fascinating look at the daily lives of his local ospreys.
And as a final note, I wanted to mention that since all our chicks are now fully flying, we are planning to make a trip up to the cam to clean off the lens. We do, however, plan to wait until we get a break in the heat before we go up.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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