On Saturday we saw our first view of a bald eagle on the osprey platform, and in the past that has meant that our cam family is no longer around and is not defending the nest. The eagle was back again on Sunday, so he seems to be comfortable with visiting.

Right now it's still a bit warm, so the eagles are not staying on the nest (and out in the sun) for very long, but we hope to see more of them as the weather cools a bit. In the past, the eagles have also used the platform as a place to eat their fish, and the fish scraps will attract other birds, such as the vultures, crows, and herons. We also hope to get an evening glimpse of our Great horned owl again this year, as well as daytime shots of immature bald eagles and maybe some hawks.

Other Ospreys

Russ Yeaton, our photographer friend from Maine, sent us a couple more shots from his three-chick family at Spring Point Light in South Portland. This series of shots was taken after a young osprey attempted to catch a fish -- the bird missed the fish but got a good swim out of the experience. And Russ says that in this shot, a young osprey was walking through the saltwater and stopped to seemingly take a drink. We want to thank Russ for all the photos he's provided from his Maine nest -- they've given us a wonderful look at ospreys from a different region of the Atlantic Coast.

Also John Gudas, who is a cam watcher from our local South River, sent photos of a three-chick nest on the river. Here is the wide-angle shot of the family and their platform, and here is a close-up of the birds on the pier. Much thanks to John for photos of the handsome family.

And one last look at the Connecticut Osprey Cam, which had the nest with the little blue teddy bear that was brought in by a parent. Seems the bear is still in residence, but I guess it won't be going to South America with the ospreys. :-)

End of the Season

This is the last entry for the 2006 Osprey Cam Web Log. We'll continue to keep the Gallery open as long as the cam is live, so you can send in photos, and I'll update the message on the cam page with any interesting news we have about the visible wildlife.

Wildlife Refuge Caucus

I wanted to finish off the web log with suggestions for how you can help America's National Wildlife Refuge System, which includes our own Blackwater Refuge. Teddy Roosevelt created the National Wildlife Refuge System back in 1901, and today the system has over 540 refuges with over 40 million visitors annually. In addition, the Refuge System contributes over $400 million to local economies through activities such as hunting, fishing, environmental education, paddling, hiking, photography, and bird watching.

Friends groups (like the Friends of Blackwater) are nonprofit citizen support groups that help the refuges meet their conservation and public use goals. Friends' volunteers carry about 20% of the workload at wildlife refuges so that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can offer adequate services to the public.

But these are tough times for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Budgets are being slashed throughout the federal government, and the Refuge System is feeling the effects. In response to the budget cuts, the Northeast Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the region Blackwater Refuge belongs to) is planning to close several national wildlife refuges due to lack of funding. Blackwater will not be closed, but other refuges will lose their staff, volunteers, and visitor services.

National wildlife refuges often do not have the political pull in Congress in the same way that national parks do. So in the House of Representatives, long-time refuge supporters Ron Kind (D-WI) and Jim Saxton (R-NJ) are forming a bi-partisan Wildlife Refuge Caucus, and they are asking other members to join so they can work together to help the Refuge System. The members will work to do the following:

• Raise awareness of our Refuge System
• Create a voice for refuges in Congress
• Support adequate Refuge System budgets
• Support the six priority activities outlined in the Refuge Improvement Act (hunting, fishing, wildlife photography, wildlife observation, environmental education and interpretation)
• Support strategic growth of the Refuge System

You can help by contacting your congressional representative and urging them to join the Wildlife Refuge Caucus. Visit the Wilderness Society website where you can email a message to your House member asking them to join the caucus if he or she has not yet joined. (The website form will make sure your email is sent to your current congressional representative. If you see a reply that says you are not eligible for the campaign, it means your member has already joined.)

We greatly appreciate your help in building a strong Wildlife Refuge Caucus in Congress.

Duck Stamps

In addition to urging your representative to join the Wildlife Refuge Caucus, another way to help is by purchasing Federal Duck Stamps. Since 1934, Federal Duck Stamps have generated more than $700 million and protected over 5.2 million acres of waterfowl habitat in America, and this habitat feeds and houses about one-third of the nation's endangered and threatened species. Consequently, the Duck Stamp Program is considered one of the most successful conservation initiatives ever created.

Nearly 98 cents out of every dollar collected from the sale of Duck Stamps (and Duck Stamp merchandise) goes directly into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund to purchase wetlands and wildlife habitat for inclusion into the National Wildlife Refuge System. Blackwater Refuge itself has benefited directly from this program, since Migratory Bird Conservation Funds have been used to purchase almost 20,000 acres for the Refuge.

Duck stamps today are federal licenses required for hunting migratory waterfowl, but they have a much larger purpose: Duck Stamps are now a vital source of funds for protecting wetlands, wildlife refuges, and endangered species -- especially in times of tight federal budgets. And since the number of hunters in America is falling, the program needs more conservationists and bird watchers to buy Duck Stamps.

Purchasing a $15 Duck Stamp is easy, and it will give you pride in knowing you're contributing directly to the protection of America's natural heritage. And Duck Stamps also give a valuable added benefit: if you are in possession of a current stamp, they give you free access to any U.S. National Wildlife Refuge open to the public. Visit our Duck Stamp page to learn more about buying a stamp or related merchandise.

Friends of Blackwater

And a final way that you can help is by supporting Friends groups such as the Friends of Blackwater. Visit our Support page to learn more about helping us accomplish our mission to protect and support Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. And if you are interested in supporting a national wildlife refuge in your neighborhood, visit RefugeNet to find a listing of Friends groups throughout the country.

Thanks to Everyone

I want to offer a final thanks to all our cam watchers for their time, photos, emails and enthusiasm. You've given us another great year with our Osprey Cam, and everyone at the Refuge greatly appreciates your support.

I'll be updating the Gallery later this week with some of our remaining osprey shots and any photos we get of the visiting bald eagles.

Until our next osprey season,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

Normally an adult male would not look kindly on another adult male "hanging out" at the home nest, yet our father osprey seemed to be okay with it. So if both birds really were adult males, what does this mean? I'm not really sure, but one guess could be that the other adult male is one of the father's offspring. When mature offspring return to the breeding grounds, sometimes the parents will allow them on the nest, although there have also been reports of parents chasing off their mature young as if they were a threat. So it's hard to say what this was, but it was an interesting surprise for so late in the season.

In addition to the two male birds, we've seen several shots of what appeared to be the mother osprey, so for now she's still in town although she'll likely head south first. As for our young -- Hunter, Skye Diver, Wind Runner, and Cloud Dancer -- we haven't seen much of them recently, and we continue to be impressed with how independent they became so soon after fledging. The only downside to this independence is that it means they aren't at the cam nest much.

For those who missed my earlier post on the subject, we would expect the whole family to be gone by around the second week of September. A sure sign that the father and last young have migrated is if we see a bald eagle on the platform -- which means the osprey family is no longer defending the nest.

A cam watcher asked me about when the bald eagles will retake the Eagle Cam nest. The eagles will begin putting in regular appearances at the Eagle Cam nest around the beginning of December, although eggs will not appear until the third or fourth week of January. We're working on a new camera housing for the Eagle Cam with the hope that it will prevent the eagles from knocking the camera out of position as they've done before. During our first two seasons with the Eagle Cam, we've watched five eaglets grow and fledge, and it's been a great experience for everyone involved, so be sure to check back with us in December for another year with our fantastic eagle parents.

How Do Ospreys Navigate

In the last couple web logs, we've talked about why ospreys migrate and where they might go when they leave for Central or South America. In this next-to-last web log entry (we'll close the web log in the next post), I wanted to offer some information on how the ospreys find their way to their wintering or nonbreeding grounds.

Despite the fact that biologists and ornithologists have studied bird migration for many years, there is still a lot that humans don't really understand about how birds find their way when they migrate -- it's a field of study that still has some mystery about it.

But what scientists do know is that migratory ospreys have a genetic component that tells them when they should leave and what direction they should travel. The sense of "when to go" can be triggered by several different factors, but is most likely triggered by the changing length of daylight -- known as the photoperiod. The photoperiod triggers other aspects of a bird's life as well, such as feather molting and production of sexual hormones, so the photoperiod is like an external clock that is in sync with the bird's internal biological clock.

Once ospreys make the decision to leave, they must then use their inherent navigational skills to locate their wintering or nonbreeding grounds. Since adult ospreys return to the same nonbreeding grounds each year, it's believed that on subsequent trips, adults will use landmarks to help guide them. But fledglings are "flying blind" -- without the benefit of having "learned" what landmarks they should look for -- so young birds must use other clues to navigate, such as the sun, the moon, and the stars. In addition to sky-reading skills, birds also have at their disposal certain skills that even humans don't possess -- such as sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic field and sensitivity to low frequency sounds created by wind and waves. During migration, ospreys frequently use their navigational tools in combination, so they can find their way through many challenging conditions.

Interestingly enough, radar technology has allowed humans to understand a great deal more about bird migration. Radar ornithology is the study of birds using radar, and it is a science that was started by the British Army during World War II. In the 1960s, radar ornithology caught on in North America, and since then it has helped the United States reduce the number of bird strikes by low-flying aircraft and has also helped bird conservation efforts by identifying popular stopover and roosting areas.

Today, both amateur and professional radar ornithologists use NEXRAD to study bird migration. NEXRAD stands for "NEXt generation RADar" and refers to the nationwide network of Doppler radar sites installed by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides almost complete radar coverage of the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Click on the thumbnail to the right to see an animated collection of images from NEXRAD that shows a large burst of birds heading north (this was recorded in the spring) as they fly from Cuba over water into Florida -- leaving en masse under favorable flying conditions on one spring evening. And note that this is a path that our ospreys will take on their way back in the spring.

If you'd like to read more about radar ornithology and the use of NEXRAD, be sure to check out these websites:

Tracking Bird Migration with Radar from eBird

NEXRAD and Bird Conservation

What is Radar from NJ Audubon Society

My next web log entry will be the last for this season, as the ospreys are getting close to migration time. Just as a reminder, we will be leaving the Osprey Cam on throughout the fall and winter, and we will continue to update the Gallery with photos of the different birds that visit the platform once the ospreys have left. So feel free to send in photos of anything interesting you see on the cam, and we'll put it in the Gallery and mention it on the cam page.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

One of our cam watchers recently asked about my reference to the "chicks" and whether this was the correct term for them now. In fact, the young are now "juveniles." I use the term "chicks" as a nickname, much as a human parent would refer to the "kids." But for those wanting to know the correct biological terms, I can offer the following definitions, which were in a paper titled "Names of Age Groups of Young Birds" by Harold Wood:

NESTLING -- A young bird within and not ready to leave the nest.

FLEDGLING -- Normally ready or physically able to leave the nest and survive, and still being cared for by its parents.

JUVENILE -- A young bird out of the nest and able to take care of itself, but which has not completed the post-juvenal molt.

IMMATURE -- A bird after completing the post-juvenal molt, but has not acquired the complete adult plumage.

YOUNG -- A generalized term applied to the bird less than one year old, when a more definite determination of age cannot be made.

Young ospreys only take about eighteen months to acquire their adult plumage, and they do not have multiple feather stages, so with ospreys they are referred to as juveniles and then immatures until they get their adult plumage. Young bald eagles take about four or five years to acquire adult plumage, and during the process they go through several stages of feather development (as their head and tail slowly turn from brown to white), so when speaking of young eagles, biologists break those immature stages down into segments such as Basic I, Basic II, etc. (For a better description of the Basic stages and a look at how the bald eagle's feathers develop, check out this PDF article).

Migration Destination

In this web log I wanted to discuss where our osprey family will likely go when they leave us. Ospreys are one of the best-studied migratory species in North America as over the years many ospreys have been fitted with radio transmitters and tracked on their way down to Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. In addition, many ospreys have been fitted with leg bands and then recovered once they showed up dead in these same areas. So biologists have a good idea as to where mid-Atlantic ospreys go once they leave for migration. We can't say exactly where each of our family members will stop, but we can offer a good hypothetical itinerary.

When an osprey is ready to leave Blackwater Refuge, it will likely strike out toward North Carolina, possibly stopping around Hertford and the Albemarle Sound to do some fishing and refueling. Ospreys stop to eat when migrating, but they also have been seen flying with a fish in their talons, which they munch on while in flight.

While tracking ospreys, biologists have found that some mid-Atlantic ospreys stay over the East Coast mainland while some head out over the Atlantic Ocean and follow the coast. Ospreys are very strong flyers and do not rely on soaring as much as other raptors (such as bald eagles), so ospreys do not mind crossing long stretches of water. (It's interesting to note that European ospreys may cross the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea).

Once an osprey leaves the Outer Banks area of North Carolina, it will likely head down to Cape Fear, North Carolina, where the Cape serves as a launching point for many ospreys that decide to strike out over the Atlantic Ocean and not regain land again until Florida.

After flying out over the ocean, the osprey might land in the area of the St. Johns River in Florida, which is the longest river in the state and a popular place for ospreys as it offers miles of quality fishing.

The osprey will then head down to the Miami, Florida area where the bird will prepare to cross the Straits of Florida and land in Cuba. Ninety percent of ospreys nesting on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. spend time in Cuba, and some even spend their entire winter there. But the majority will continue on to Haiti, and from the Port-au-Prince area, launch out over the Caribbean Sea and land in South America.

Making the 400-mile flight across the Caribbean Sea is the most taxing part of the ospreys' trip, so most birds stop as soon as they hit land (often around the Guajira Peninsula) and spend time resting and fishing. Some ospreys go no farther, while others fan out all over South America, with some going very deep into the continent. (On this map, look for the little houses to see some known destinations for migrating ospreys.) It's been reported that females tend to go farther south than the males, which might have something to do with the females' larger size. For those ospreys that travel inland, they will often hang around large rivers including the Amazon and the Orinoco River.

Ospreys will likely roam around their home area throughout the winter season, but most birds stay in the same general region until they are ready to head north again. Adult birds will start north in the following January, February or March; but juvenile birds will stay down south for an extra year before returning north. Ospreys are as loyal to their chosen wintering grounds as they are to their breeding grounds and will normally return to the same southern region each year.

Threats to Ospreys

One of the sad facts of life is that ospreys face many threats on their journey south -- a journey that could reach a length of 2000-4000 miles and take from 15-50+ days to complete. Common causes of death among migrating ospreys include electrocution; collisions with power lines, buildings, cars, and cell phone towers; storms; starvation (either from lack of fish, water pollution, or lack of fishing skills); drowning (from fishing lines); pesticides; and shooting.

In Latin America and the Caribbean countries, shooting is a major cause of death for ospreys. Many farmers in these regions consider all raptors to be a threat to their livestock, and so they shoot most birds of prey. But the main reason for shooting is that ospreys frequently hunt for meals at fish farms. Fish farming is a growing industry in Latin America and the Caribbean countries, and ospreys often use the farms for an easy meal, which frequently leads to the ospreys' death.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has funded a program called "Wildlife Without Borders" that has researched the problem of osprey shootings at fish farms. The research indicates that as many as 14,000 ospreys are killed by fish farmers each year within the seven Latin American countries surveyed. When the research is applied to the twenty-one Latin American and Caribbean countries that have fish farms along the ospreys' migratory route, the actual mortality rate for ospreys is probably much higher. In fact, one farmer surveyed admitted to shooting about 200 ospreys each year.

The USFWS report that, "farm owners spend millions of pesos each year trying a variety of bird deterrents such as noise-making devices, scarecrows, dogs and hired-man patrols. None of these methods has proven to be effective." Some farmers have reported success using lines of nylon twine, as well as nets to keep the ospreys away from the fish. The USFWS reports that many farmers seem genuinely interested in finding ways to protect the ospreys, and the researchers hope to continue working with the farmers to find better and more affordable solutions. You can read more about the USFWS' research efforts on their International Affairs page.

Meanwhile environmental groups are also working to educate farmers and citizens in an effort to decrease shootings and to increase appreciation for ospreys throughout Latin America and the Caribbean countries. National Geographic News published an interesting article about the growing enthusiasm for osprey protection in Cuba, which is THE major hub for migratory ospreys from the East Coast, and hopefully this trend will continue.

The difficulties that ospreys face during migration season serve as a reminder to humans that wildlife protection is often an international affair. Ospreys know nothing of human economies, artificial borders, international law, or shifting politics. The osprey sees the world as "home" and moves about as if it is welcome everywhere. We hope that one day the osprey truly will be.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

I wanted to thank everyone who sent in photos for our recent Gallery update. The Gallery now has shots that show us when our youngest chick -- Cloud Dancer -- took his first couple flights. We also saw one shot of a chick mantling his food -- mantling is when a raptor spreads its wings over a meal as if to indicate "Back off! It's mine!" Another group of photos showed a chick engaging in some nest maintenance -- good to see the youngsters learning those domestic chores. And finally, we saw several photos of fish crows on the nest scavenging for leftovers while the ospreys were away.

One cam watcher asked about Cloud Dancer's meals. The youngest might be fishing for himself by now, but if not, the parents will make sure the littlest has food. I saw a parent on the nest Tuesday morning with a fish. The one chick on the nest didn't seem interested, so the parent flew away with it. It was hard to tell if the adult was the father or mother, but once the end of August comes, the mother will likely be gone, and any adult we see will be the father.

Since Cloud Dancer fully fledged, we've seen fewer shots of the other fledglings -- Hunter, Wind Runner, and Skye Diver -- on the platform. I think when Cloud Dancer was nest-bound, it made the older chicks come back more often since the odds of getting a meal at the nest were better. But now that the youngest is actively flying, the older chicks don't have as much of a reason to hang around the platform.

I can't tell for sure, but the one chick we see spending the most time at the nest is likely the youngest. Cloud Dancer will get more independent as time goes on and he realizes that if he wants to eat more, he needs to go fishing.

And for those cam watchers who tell me that they have a hard time telling the difference between parents and chicks -- here is a photo that shows how you can tell: The parents' body feathers are solid brown, while the chicks' body feathers have a light-colored edge.

Why Do Ospreys Migrate

In our next web log, I'm going to post several images from Google Earth to show you where our ospreys will likely go when they begin their migration south. But in this web log, I wanted to talk about why the ospreys have to leave in the first place. At Blackwater Refuge, our adult bald eagles do not normally migrate from the area, but the adult and juvenile ospreys do. So why the difference?

Blackwater Refuge is located in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., and although we sometimes experience cold winters, the ospreys could actually survive the cold temperatures if they stayed here during the winter months -- just as the bald eagles do. But what makes the two raptor species different is that the ospreys' main prey -- fresh fish -- is very hard to find in the winter. Cold temperatures drive the fish into deeper water and out of reach of ospreys, and during some of our more harsh winters, the Blackwater River can actually freeze over (see photo). Since an osprey's diet is normally about 99% fresh fish, the ospreys would likely starve if they stayed.

Bald eagles are more flexible in their diet, which means that while they prefer fish, they can switch to other forms of prey during the winter. Those who watch our Eagle Cam remember that in December and January, we often saw the eagles bring ducks and rabbits to the nest. The ospreys do not have this option of switching to another meal choice, so they must migrate to an area where the fishing is good throughout the winter months. For mid-Atlantic ospreys, their wintering grounds are most likely South America, although some ospreys might stay in Central America.

But what about the ospreys that already live in warm areas? The ospreys that live in southern Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean will not leave their region once nesting season is done -- these are called "non-migrant" ospreys. These non-migrants might roam around their region during their non-breeding season, but they won't leave it completely. Also they will frequently nest earlier than our birds, with the ospreys in the Florida Keys nesting as early as November and December (ours begin nesting in March).

At this stage, it's natural to wonder why the Blackwater ospreys don't just stay down south where the weather is warm. Unfortunately for the ospreys, they do not have that option because the southern wintering grounds do not have the space and resources required to support all breeding ospreys. Many raptors need space when raising a family, and it would not work to have all the continent's ospreys in one area where they would have to compete with large numbers of fellow ospreys looking for the same food sources and limited nesting sites during the crucial breeding season. So instead, the ospreys migrate north and spread out around the continent when it comes time to breed.

Migration Hot Spot

Once migration starts (around mid August), birds all around the country will begin to move toward their winter homes, and our osprey family will be in that group. When discussing bird migration, you often hear biologists talk about the major "flyways" -- these are popular aerial highways that birds use to move between their summer and winter homes. Blackwater Refuge is a major hub on the Atlantic Flyway, and many birds either stop here to fuel up or spend their entire winter in our marshlands. When our ospreys leave, they will be on the Atlantic Flyway.

There are several areas around the country that are considered natural bottlenecks for migrating birds -- meaning these areas have a land topography that forces ospreys and other birds into a smaller area, making it easier for humans to locate and watch the migration spectacle. One of the best places to observe migrating ospreys on the East Coast is at the famous Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. Between August 15 and December 15, an average of 20,000 hawks, eagles and falcons pass the Sanctuary's North Lookout, where the birds are observed and tallied.

The reason Hawk Mountain is such a popular bottleneck is that the mountain is part of the Kittatinny Ridge -- the eastern-most ridge of the central Appalachian Mountains. The Kittatinny Ridge is one of the tallest and most continuous ridges in the mountain chain and attracts many raptors looking to take advantage of the updrafts of air, which help the birds cover more ground with less effort as they head down the East Coast during migration. Here is a photo from Google Earth where you can see the ridge and the Sanctuary.

Starting on August 15, you can keep tabs on the autumn migration at Hawk Mountain by visiting the sanctuary's home page where they will post the daily count every evening after 5pm. On the website's Migration page, you can read more about migration and the dates when the different raptor species are seen (scroll to the bottom for the dates). You can also subscribe to their email updates to receive news about the migration season as it develops. While Hawk Mountain does see quite a few birds during spring migration, the fall migration season is the one that attracts the largest numbers of raptors. In 2005, Hawk Mountain tallied 480 migrating ospreys.

If you're lucky enough to live on the East Coast, I highly recommend taking a trip up to Hawk Mountain during migration season. Besides getting a chance to see many species of raptors, you can also enjoy some people-watching, as well as some leaf-peeping as the mountain hillsides explode with color during the cooler weeks.

And if you don't live on the East Coast, you can still enjoy a quick aerial video of Hawk Mountain on the Audubon Pennsylvania website.

General Osprey News

Our friend Russ Yeaton reports that the three chicks at his local osprey nest at Spring Point Light in South Portland, Maine have all fledged. Here we have three photos from Russ: The first photo shows a pre-fledgling hovering over the nest; the second photo shows a fledged juvenile on a rock (notice the light-colored edges on its feathers); and the third photo shows a beautiful sunrise shot from Spring Point Light. Congrats to the new fledglings, and much thanks to Russ for his photos.

Speaking of Maine, I wanted to share an interesting cam link. The National Audubon Society's Project Puffin has put a Puffin Cam on Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in Maine, which is the only U.S. state with a population of Atlantic puffins. If you've never seen a puffin, be sure to check out the website's movie page where you can see footage of puffin chicks inside their rock burrows.

The Puffin Cam's live video stream alternates between two regular ground-level cameras and a new infrared "burrow cam." They move the cam view around, so you have to be a bit patient to see action, but it's an unusual project and worth checking out.

Vermont Eagle News

And on a final note, here is an interesting article about the Vermont Bald Eagle Restoration Initiative. They report that the last eaglet has fledged from their program. As our Eagle Cam watchers remember, birds from Blackwater Refuge were used in this hacking program to reestablish nesting bald eagles in Vermont. We're thrilled that the program has been such a wonderful success. Best of luck to all the fledgling eaglets!

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

We had three winners this year, and they are listed below.

Congratulations to our winners:

Heidi Graser from Wooster, Ohio with the names Cloud Dancer and Wind Runner; Linda Pittsley from Boise, Idaho with the name Hunter; and Patricia Mishico from New Fairfield, Connecticut with the name Skye Diver

All our winners will receive an osprey prize from our gift store and also a certificate of appreciation for helping us name our record-breaking four chicks.

As for assigning the names, I think Hunter is an appropriate name for our oldest, which might be our missing chick. If he's safe and sound, then he must be a very independent osprey that learned to provide for himself rather early.

That would mean our middle chicks were the ones Bob Quinn saw playing out in the Refuge when he took the photos I posted in the last web log entry, so we'll name them Skye Diver and Wind Runner.

And for our youngest, I think the name Cloud Dancer is fitting as there were many times over the last couple months when we had doubts that the littlest would ever make it to migration age, but now the youngest will soon be dancing in the clouds as he heads to Central or South America for the winter -- a fantastic achievement for a fourth chick.

Our chicks are spending much of their time out in the Refuge now, learning to master their flying and fishing skills, and learning to relate to other creatures in their environment. The chicks are still several weeks from migration, but now is the time when they must develop the knowledge they'll need to look after themselves once they leave Blackwater and the safety of their family.

Our chicks are lucky, although they certainly don't know it. If you remember, our adult couple at the Osprey Cam platform this year returned to Blackwater Refuge in early March and set up nesting right away. (Biologists report that experienced osprey couples often return early to their nesting grounds, compared to inexperienced couples that often show up late.) As a result, all four cam chicks officially fledged before the beginning of August.

If you look at last year's inexperienced pair (we believe it was a different couple) they took over the platform late and hatched their two chicks late. As a result, last year's youngest chick did not fledge until the middle of August, and migrated only three weeks later. We don't know if the youngest made it to Central or South America, but sadly the odds were not in his favor.

This year's osprey parents have given their four chicks more than a month to prepare for migration, so the young are benefiting from the wisdom and experience of their parents, and they will have a better chance of surviving the flight down south because their parents have given them an advantage from the start.

Osprey migration is an interesting topic, so in the next couple web logs, we'll talk more about why the birds leave and what areas in Central or South America they might choose for their winter homes. Also, we'll talk about how the young birds find their way to a place they've never seen before, and what dangers might exist for them along their journey.

Once again, congratulations to our contest winners, and thanks to everyone for sending in their wonderful entry names. And we'll update the Gallery over the weekend.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

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.

In the third and fourth photos, we see a fledgling coming into the cam nest for a landing.

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.

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
(contact)

Since the older chicks first fledged, we haven't seen a lot of the father osprey either, so there is a possibility that the father is off somewhere keeping an eye on the missing chick. But it is very odd that while the two older fledglings often return to the nest -- to eat, preen, and rest -- the other older fledgling is no where to be seen.

Some cam watchers have asked about what types of threats there are around the Refuge. Blackwater Refuge is in a pretty safe area for ospreys, but there are still risks. Sometimes young ospreys get electrocuted on power lines, drown while learning to fish (by getting caught in fishing line) or hurt themselves while learning to land. As for avian threats, Great horned owls and bald eagles have on rare occasions been known to take out a full-grown osprey, but they would more likely prey on eggs and small chicks.

Another cam watcher asked if our missing chick could have taken up residence at another osprey nest. Young ospreys do visit other nests (we had a fledgling visitor this week) but they do not normally stay at the other nest. Biologists have speculated that a "runt" might possibly spend more time at a neighboring nest because the littlest cannot get enough food at home, but our missing fledgling was one of the bigger birds, and would not have had trouble getting fed by the parents.

So at this point, we will just hope that the missing bird is all right and is with the father somewhere. Perhaps once the mother migrates in August, the father and missing chick will be seen more at the nest, as the father will then be in charge of protecting all the fledglings until they are ready to migrate.

Our youngest chick appeared to take a flight on Wednesday morning. He had been flapping quite a bit and finally seemed to disappear from the camera view for several minutes. He will be nine weeks old on Friday, so we're marking his fledging at 61 days -- which was about the same as our youngest last year. Despite his apparent flight, the youngest is still spending a good bit of time in the nest.

Meanwhile our two older fledglings have been seen bringing in their own fish. We're not sure if they're catching the fish themselves, or if the father or mother are providing the meals off-camera, but the young have been bringing them on a regular basis. Sometimes the mother lets them "hog" the fish, and sometimes she takes it away and feeds it to the family, or eats it herself.

Contest

I emailed our Blackwater staff and asked them to pick up the pace on the contest results. I know they're having a hard time deciding, but I asked if they could give us an answer soon. I'll announce the results as soon as I get them.

Eagles and Ospreys

It's hard to talk extensively about ospreys without mentioning their main nemesis -- the bald eagle. Eagles and ospreys have a unique, combative relationship that is sometimes visible in the skies over Blackwater Refuge.

Bald eagles may be the national symbol of the United States, but they have not been without their critics. In 1782, during the debate over the choice of America's national symbol, founding father Benjamin Franklin was reported to have said about the bald eagle: "He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree near the river, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk (osprey); and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him." Franklin went on to call the eagle a thief and a scavenger, because sometimes the eagle prefers to steal a meal rather than catch one itself.

And that brings us to the osprey: The osprey is known as perhaps the most skilled angler in the natural world. And fortunately for the eagle, the osprey happens to specialize in catching the eagle's favorite food -- fish.

But it gets even better for the eagle, because while the osprey is an agile and powerful flier, it is also smaller than the eagle. The osprey has a wingspan of 4.5 to 6 feet, while the eagle's wingspan can be as much as 7.5 to 8 feet. So a single eagle can dominate a single osprey in most aerial battles.

Ed Schulz, a photographer who has worked with the U.S. Geological Survey in Washington state, was kind enough to lend me a photo that shows perhaps the best example I've seen of the size comparison between the eagle and osprey. In this photo the eagle is practically on top of the osprey as it attempts to bully the smaller raptor into dropping its meal. Ed reports that this photo was part of a series, "where the male osprey was in the process of delivering the headless Pile Perch to the female at the nest when the eagle intercepted them. The female joined in the battle to defend her meal but the eagle did eventually get the fish."

In most battles of this kind, the eagle will prevail by harassing the osprey to the point that the smaller raptor drops the fish just to get the eagle to leave it alone (see photo), after which the eagle will retrieve the meal. But if the osprey is determined to keep its bounty, the eagle will sometimes resort to a physical attack in order to win the prize. Oddly enough some biologists speculate that in the end, the eagle may spend more energy on stealing the meal than it would have used in catching the fish itself.

In the wonderful book, The Bald Eagle: Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch, one of the authors describes an eagle/osprey encounter on a Saskatchewan, Canada lake that shows how far an eagle will go to get what it wants:

"The eagle attacked from a few feet above and to one side of the Osprey -- once, twice, and then a third time. On each pass the Osprey visibly flinched, for the eagle's talons barely cleared its back. We anxiously awaited the outcome. Many observers had described how typically the Osprey drops its fish, and with surprising agility the Bald Eagle snatches the fallen prey in midair. We were not prepared for what happened. After three unsuccessful attacks, the eagle turned to brute force. This time coming up fast from behind and below, the eagle flipped onto its back, thrust its talons upward, and ripped the fish right out of the Osprey's grasp. What a sight! After quickly righting itself, the eagle turned and flapped leisurely to deposit the booty on its nest."

But at this point, you shouldn't think that ospreys are helpless victims. Although smaller than the eagle, ospreys still have a lot of fight.

As Ed Schulz previously recounted, sometimes an osprey will join up with its mate in an attempt to "save" its meal. Tom Miller, our park ranger at Blackwater Refuge, reports that several times he has seen an osprey head-off an eagle in order to allow its mate to get back to the nest with their fish.

Ospreys have also been known to team-up with their mate to attack an eagle that wanders too close to their home nest. A famous example of this occurred back on July 4, 1996, when former President Bill Clinton released a rehabilitated bald eagle named Freedom on the Patuxent River near the Chesapeake Bay. Craig Koppie -- Blackwater's friendly endangered species specialist -- was the one who helped Clinton release the eagle.

However, what the president and Craig didn't realize was that near the release site was an occupied osprey nest, and when the newly freed eagle flew over it, the ospreys decided to teach the young bird a lesson. The ospreys chased after the poor eagle, pecking and harassing it until it landed in the water where the Coast Guard later retrieved it to make sure it was all right. Eventually the eagle was re-released at a different location that was away from ospreys and other eagles.

At Blackwater Refuge, the bald eagles often fly around or near the Osprey Cam nest, and the ospreys don't react well when they do. The parents will scream at the eagles and chase them away, and normally the eagles will then leave. Once we get near migration, the eagles will begin to circle the platform even more in anticipation of the ospreys vacating it. The eagles like the cam platform because it makes an excellent perch near the river. In the last couple years, we've noticed that we can tell when the last osprey has migrated, because within the next couple days, the eagles are on the platform, indicating that the ospreys are no longer defending it.

So this year, we'll once again look for that first photo showing an eagle on the ospreys' nest, and that will be the most definite sign we'll have that the last osprey chick has headed south for the winter.

Once the ospreys are gone, we will leave the Osprey Cam online throughout the winter so we can watch the eagles and other birds that visit. We get quite a variety of birds during the months when the ospreys are gone, including immature bald eagles, hawks, turkey vultures, Great blue herons and Great horned owls.

General Osprey News

While we're on the subject of ospreys and their relations to other birds, I wanted to share a couple new photos from photographer Russ Yeaton, who photographs a local osprey family at Spring Point Light in South Portland, Maine. In this photo by Russ, you can see the osprey mother is unhappy about a family of ducks that were swimming too close to the osprey nest. And in this photo you can see a gull chasing the osprey as it tries to carry a fish back to the nest. Apparently gulls are thieves, too!

Also, our cam watchers might remember that a while back I posted a photo that Russ took showing a small house sparrow sitting on a twig under the Maine osprey nest. Russ reports that the sparrows do indeed nest in the ospreys' home (in the area where you see the white paper on the nest). Apparently the sparrows are perfectly fine with having a large, powerful raptor as their landlord.

And finally, the nice folks at Public Service New Hampshire emailed us to say that they have an Osprey Cam on their website that features live streaming video of a nest at their Ayer's Island hydroelectric plant in Bristol/New Hampton, New Hampshire. When you visit the site, be sure to check out the interesting Gallery -- and note that the site works best if viewed with Internet Explorer. We're told that the cam nest has two chicks that should fledge in a few weeks. Best of luck to their young ospreys, and to all the ospreys that are making an impressive comeback in New Hampshire.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

Our bookstore manager says she thinks she saw four chicks with the mother on Friday (via the TV monitor) but we don't have a photo showing that, so we're not sure if it was the missing fledgling or the father that was on the nest with the others.

It seemed too early for any of the fledglings to be completely independent. They are still relying on the parents for quite a bit of their food, although we think we may have seen one of the older chicks doing some fishing of his own. Also it seemed too early for them to be spending their entire night in the trees, so we wanted to be sure that no harm has come to any of the fledglings. Our ranger did check beneath the platform, but from what he could see, there was nothing obvious to indicate that there was an accident.

Finally, Sunday evening we caught a fleeting glimpse of five birds on the nest. It was too dark to be sure, but we're hoping the fifth bird was the missing fledgling.

If any of our cam watchers catch a glimpse of more than four birds on the nest over the coming week, please send in the photo. If you've never sent in a photo before, you can find instructions for doing so here. We'll keep looking for signs that all four chicks are healthy and well.

For those who are keeping track, our three oldest chicks fledged at 56-57 days of age. The youngest chick is now eight weeks old, so he could fly at any time, although he doesn't seem to be in a hurry. He's been seen flapping his wings strongly, so he appears healthy and able. We'll just have to wait until he feels ready.

It's been touching to watch the mother osprey hanging around the nest with our youngest chick. While the youngest is at the nest all day, it's important that a parent keep an eye on him. Our bookstore manager reports that last Monday, an eagle was circling the platform and making the mother osprey very upset. (I think this photo was from that time period.) So a parent cannot stray too far from the platform while the youngest is still nest-bound.

One cam watcher asked about migration: The mother will likely head south first -- probably around mid or late August -- once the chicks are all fledged and capable of looking after themselves. Then the father will be responsible for keeping watch over the fledglings until they are ready to migrate, which will probably be in early or mid September. We'll talk more about migration in our upcoming web logs, but at this stage, none of the ospreys are ready to migrate just yet.

TV Monitor Videos

As I promised earlier, I am posting several video clips that I captured from our Osprey Cam TV monitor at the Visitor Center last week. These videos were recorded right after our first fledgling started flying last Sunday morning (an event you can see in the videos I posted previously).

The video clips below are Windows Media Video files. You can right-click the image and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" to download the clips to your computer. Forgive the misty quality of the videos -- it's caused by the poop residue on the camera lens.

In the first video, we see the mother return to the nest with a piece of fish. The sole fledgling is gone from the nest, and one of the older chicks commandeers the fish for himself while fending off the youngest chick.

In the second video, the mother returns again with a piece of fish, which the same chick as before takes for himself (fish hog!). Then the mother starts looking skyward, and begins calling out in alarm at something above the nest. This is the scene we saw in my previously posted videos from the Wildlife Drive, when a strange osprey tried to land on the fledgling chick, which was sitting on the camera arm, out of our view. The mother jumps up twice to scare off the intruder, and at the end of this video you see the intruder flying away from the platform.

In the third video, the youngest chick decides he's had enough of the fish hog taking all the meals, so he tries to challenge the older chick. Unfortunately, the older chick has a size advantage and intimidates the youngest into backing off.

In the fourth video, the new fledgling hop-flies to one end of the platform, and a pre-fledgling imitates him by flying over to the same side. Then the new fledgling flies off the platform. Note that during this video the youngest has assumed his head-down submissive posture while near the mother. He assumed this posture after being bullied by the older chick over the food.

And in the final video, the new fledgling is sitting on the camera arm (out of our view), but his shadow is visible in the lower left corner. Then the new fledgling flies down to the nest, which makes the camera arm vibrate. Note that the chick in the middle of the nest is trying to swallow a fish tail, as he finishes off the mother's most recent meal.

Thanks to those sending in photos to our cam gallery. If we see any photos of all four chicks at the nest, we'll post them on the cam page.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

One of our cam watchers asked about how meals will work now that several chicks are apparently flying. For the time being, the chicks will continue to rely on the parents for food, but the chicks might eat some of their meals away from the platform. The youngest is still eating at the nest, in fact this afternoon we saw the youngest and another chick getting a meal from a parent before the other chicks returned to get some, too.

Once the fledglings are fishing for themselves, they might bring their meal to the platform to eat, but if they do, they run the risk of having the meal taken away. Last year we had a younger chick that would bring back his fish only to have his bigger sibling steal it from him. So once the fledglings are fishing, they would be wise to eat some of their meals as "take out."

Virtual Reality Movie

As I mentioned in the last web log, I recorded some video footage from the Osprey Cam TV monitor on Sunday. However, I haven't had a chance to edit it all yet, so we'll save that footage for another log post. But I do have a movie from Sunday that I think you will enjoy.

During the course of running the Osprey Cam, I've had many folks ask me what the area around the Osprey Cam platform looks like. I've posted a few still photos, but they don't really give our cam watchers a full view.

While I was at the Refuge on Sunday, I took a series of shots showing the entire 360-degree view from in front of the Osprey Cam platform. I was able to stitch the photos into a 360-degree QuickTime Virtual Reality movie (often referred to as QTVR). The movie below is 540 KB in size, and you can play it with the free QuickTime player. Either click on the link below and let it load, or right-click and save it to your hard drive to play. (If you don't have QuickTime, you can get it here).

When the file opens, just put your cursor over the movie, and while you hold down your left mouse button, move the cursor to the left and right, and you can spin 360 degrees to see the whole movie.

My creation is not perfectly aligned because I rushed the shots since the ospreys were starting to yell at me for being near the nest during meal time. But I think the movie gives you a good feel for what their environment looks like.

In the movie, there are several noteworthy features that I'll point out: If you move your cursor to the right after the movie opens, you will see the tall Osprey Cam platform, and behind it you can see our recently renovated Visitor Center. On both sides of the platform are small ponds, which are actually water impoundment areas that often contain herons, egrets, turtles, fish, and ducks. Sometimes the ospreys will look down and watch the action in the water (the water is closer to the ospreys than it appears in the movie). The staff at Blackwater Refuge can control how much rainwater is allowed to collect in these ponds.

The gravel road leading to the platform is the access road we use to maintain the camera and ground equipment. When the bucket truck visits to fix or clean the camera, this is the road they use to access the nest. Going down the road will make the ospreys fly off the nest, so we have a sign up saying the road is restricted to Blackwater staff, and we use the road only when necessary.

The stand of trees to the left of the platform are the ones that the eagles sometimes sit in, causing the osprey parents much consternation (the trees are closer to the nest than they appear in the movie). Also there is a water snag further to the left of the trees where eagles like to perch, and sometimes the ospreys are irritated by those eagles as well.

If you spin around in the movie, you'll see a paved road -- that's our Wildlife Drive. Much of the Refuge's 27,000 acres is water and wetlands, so unless you paddle, it can be hard to see some of the many species that call Blackwater home. In order to make the Refuge more accessible and enjoyable, we built a Wildlife Drive that runs through loblolly pine forests and along the Little Blackwater and Blackwater Rivers. The road is a 6.5 mile loop, and visitors can walk, cycle, or drive around it, and it takes them within close proximity to eagles, ospreys, numerous waterfowl, and even our endangered Delmarva fox squirrels. If you come to the Refuge, definitely spend some time on the Wildlife Drive, and be sure to bring your camera.

The long body of water in front of the Drive is the Blackwater River, which is the heart of the Refuge. This river is where many of the eagles and ospreys fish for their meals. It's hard to tell from my movie, but it's a big river with lots of marshland.

One of the features that makes the Blackwater River -- and the nearby Chesapeake Bay -- so attractive to eagles and ospreys, is that the water is very shallow, which fits in perfectly with their fishing styles, because eagles and ospreys catch their meals near the surface.

Visitors often ask us where the name "blackwater" comes from, and the answer is that the tannic acid from decaying leaves on the forest floor darkens the water, which then drains from thousands of acres into the river. Thus the dark, tea-colored liquid is called "blackwater."

Now that you've seen a bit of the Refuge, I invite you to come visit us if you can. Our most popular time of the year is around October to early December, when we host a huge amount of waterfowl. Blackwater Refuge is a major stop on the Atlantic Flyway (a bird migration highway) and in the fall and winter we host 50,000+ geese, ducks, and tundra swans. Throughout the year we host around 250 species of other birds, numerous mammals, and 165 species of threatened or endangered plants.

Blackwater Refuge is also home to the largest breeding population of bald eagles on the East Coast outside of Florida. Eagles can be seen almost any time of year because our adult eagles do not migrate out of the area, but winter is our best time for seeing eagles because we host many migrating eagles from the northeastern and southern sections of the country as well as from Canada.

If you want to see ospreys, then spring and summer is the time to visit (March to early September). When I was at the Refuge on Sunday, I passed by three osprey water platforms that were occupied, and I saw at least seven chicks -- and that's not counting the four at our cam platform. So Blackwater Refuge is very much osprey heaven, and you're in for a treat if you happen to see an osprey diving into the river to catch a meal.

The only caveat for summer is to bring your bug spray. Mosquitoes here are legendary, and have been known to fly off with small children. ;-)

In addition to the Wildlife Drive, we also currently have three land trails and three paddling trails. Also, don't forget that if you visit when the Eagle Cam and Osprey Cam are online, you can see the live video on our TV monitors at the Visitor Center.

If you'd like to learn more about visiting Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, be sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions page on our website. And if you require further information that's not on our website, feel free to use the address and phone number on our FAQ page to contact the Blackwater staff directly.

If you'd like to see more photos and videos of the Refuge, see our website Gallery page, which includes a video of last year's osprey family "yelling" at me as I videotaped them.

Finally, a note about the Osprey Cam Gallery: Thanks to all those who are sending in photos from the cam. We'll get the Osprey Cam Gallery updated by the end of the week.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

The videos below are Windows Media Video files. They will play best if you just download them to your computer. Right-click on the photos and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" to download. Note that the clips do not have audio. I stayed in my car to film them because when I get out of the car near the nest, the ospreys get aggitated.

In the first video, the new fledgling (which right before this sequence had flapped a couple times) suddenly jumps out of the nest. It is a short flight but a good start. At the end of the video, the fledgling lands, and one of the middle chicks is inspired to do a little flapping too (forgive the blurriness -- my auto focus was having a hard time keeping up with the young bird).

In the second video, a sibling gooses the new fledgling, causing the chick to take off on another flight. This second flight is a bit wobbly at the start and the landing is a bit tentative, but he hits the mark.

In the third video, the same chick is in flight yet again, but this time when the young osprey returns, a small marsh bird decides to harass the chick a bit. Welcome to the world, new fledgling!

In the fourth video, the mother returns with a fish (note that our fledgling is sitting on the camera arm, outside of our view). After her arrival, suddenly a strange osprey tries to land, but makes the mistake of attempting to land on a chick, which makes the mother osprey angry (the stranger looked like an adult, but it may have been another fledgling from a neighboring nest). The intruder is chased off by the mother, but the same bird returns again and is then chased off a final time.

Finally in the fifth video, our new fledgling comes down from his "bedroom" and joins the family in the dining area.

While I was capturing these videos with my camcorder, I was also taping video from the TV monitor at our Visitor Center using a VCR. It will take me a couple days to edit and compress that video for the website, but I'll try to have some clips ready for the next web log post.

So congrats to our new fledgling! The others should fly soon now that they have the example of their older sibling to follow. Unfortunately it may be hard to tell which chick is coming and which is going, but we'll keep an eye out for photos that seem to indicate more and more chicks are leaving.

And just a reminder, even though the chicks are starting to fly, they will still use the platform for eating, resting, and sleeping for a while yet. Over time they will become more independent, and then they will begin roosting in the trees and eating more of their meals on a perch away from the platform.

As for the youngest, I did see him do a little flapping today and a little hop flying around the nest. It's hard to say when he will fly or how close he will be in fledging with the others. But he might surprise us and go sooner than we think.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

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):

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
(contact)

Nest Update: We've made the decision to delay our trip up to clean the camera lens since the chicks are starting to become airborne over the nest, indicating they could be close to flying. Going up now means we run the risk of spooking them into jumping before they're ready. So we'll just make do with our slightly misty cam until we feel it's safe to go up.

Our cam technician has designed a lens-cleaning device that we can activate from the ground. We plan to install it on the cam the next time we go up. If it works, we might be able to clear the lens of any future slicing accidents, both this season and in upcoming seasons.

On another nest-related matter: We've noticed that one of the parents brought what looks like a looped rope to the nest; it probably came with a previous fish dinner. Our ranger said he's not too worried about it because the loop is big enough that the ospreys should be able to free themselves if they get a talon caught in it. (A more worrisome item that ospreys sometimes bring to the nest is fishing line, which has been known to entangle adults and chicks, and even lead to death.) We'll keep an eye on the rope, although at this point it does not look like a problem.

Be sure to check out Tuesday's Gallery update as we had lots of great shots, including many beautiful photos from when our cam lens was nice and clean. In the update, we saw a few revelations as our chicks are beginning to act more like adults these days. We saw several photos where the chicks were feeding themselves and also some photos where they were wiping their beaks on the nest, just like the adults do after a meal.

Also we saw a couple shots where Mom was calling out at an intruder in the sky, and the older chicks joined in too, imitating Mom. Gone are the days when the helpless chicks just laid about in the nest like fuzzy little balls. Now they're starting to defend the nest just like their mother. And what was the intruder? We can't be sure, but maybe an eagle flew too close to the nest.

Lately we've also seen the father osprey dropping off fish and letting the kids fight over it when the mother is not in the nest. This is the type of behavior we'll see again around late August, when the mother osprey has started migration and the father is left to watch the kids until they're ready to head south. Dad's job at that point will be to provide additional food if the chicks are having trouble catching their own, and he will often do this by dropping a fish onto the platform for the chicks to eat.

First Flights:
Any day now we will witness our chicks taking their first flights off our tall Osprey Cam platform. Avian parents do not need to teach their young to fly -- chicks fly instinctively. Right now the chicks are "fly hopping" around the nest and even hovering above it. In fact on Tuesday, it seemed that one chick made a short "flight" above the nest. The chick must be careful though because a strong breeze could push it from the nest prematurely. If that happens, the chick will be forced into its first flight and may need to land on the ground and remain there for a while until it has the strength to return to the nest. If a fledgling is stuck on the ground, the parents will feed the stranded bird, but the chick will be vulnerable to land predators.

For most osprey fledglings, their first flight will be more deliberate, as ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent describes in Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey:

"Finally, confidence in the power of its wings, or the example set by its parents, prompts the boldest of the young to make its first real flight away from the nest, a supreme moment in its life. With surprising ease it sails or flaps along, but it soon becomes tired and looks for a place to perch. Its attempts to alight on a treetop are awkward and uncertain; it has not learned to grasp a slender perch and finds it difficult to get its balance with much flapping of wings and wiggling of tail. It may be forced to alight on the ground to rest...Such flights are short at first and the young always seem glad to return to the firm flat top of the nest, which will be their headquarters, bedroom, and dining room for several weeks yet."

Once the new fledgling has left the nest for the first time and managed to return successfully, the next task will be to master the wind and the use of its own wings, because much is riding on the fledgling's ability to become a strong flyer. By the end of September these young birds must be ready to get themselves all the way to Central or South America for the winter -- possibly 2000 miles or more. So although the first flight is an exciting moment, it is just one step on the path to becoming a strong and independent adult osprey.

In past seasons with our Osprey Cam we've learned that while watching the chicks disappear from the nest for the first time can be exciting, watching them try to land again can also be very entertaining. The reason for this is that landing can be just as difficult a skill to master as flying. There have been stories of ospreys crashing into trees, landing in water, and hanging from branches by one foot. Among the more humorous moments we've seen on the cam was the time when a chick landed on Momma, who looked more than a little shocked by the sensation of talons on her back.

One other perk of fledging season is the fact that sometimes juvenile ospreys from other nests will "visit." In the past, we've never had more than two chicks at the Osprey Cam platform, so it's been easy to notice when there was an "extra" chick that had dropped in for a visit. Here is a photo from 2004 where you can see Mom suddenly noticing that there is a strange chick in her two-chick home. Ornithologists report that osprey adults are rather tolerant of wayward juveniles from other nests, and sometimes even feed the visiting fledglings before the young head back to their real homes. It's kind of like "trick or treat" in the osprey community -- chicks visit other nests to see if the snacks at the neighbors' house are any better than the ones they're getting at home.

This year with four chicks, I'm not sure if a visiting chick will want to land on the cam platform with all the competition at our nest. And if one does, I'm not sure if we'll be able to pick it out from the native chicks. But we can keep our eyes open for any shots where there are suddenly five juveniles in the nest. Although the sight of five chicks might scare our Mom away for good. :-)

So best of luck to our chicks as they each prepare for that big jump out into the world. We wish each of them a safe and wonderful first flight.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

The good news is that once the chicks begin to fledge, there will be less slicing going on in the nest. With flight, the chicks will no longer be nest bound, and they will be able to relieve themselves elsewhere rather than in front of the cam. So the slicing situation will improve in time. We'll keep you updated on our possible plans for making another cleaning trip.

As we mentioned earlier, chicks often fledge at around 50-55 days of age. The oldest chick will be 47 days old on Friday, so that gives you an idea as to how close we are to possible fledging. We did see an interesting shot showing one of the chicks very close to the edge with his wings out. This looked like a chick contemplating takeoff.

When a chick commits to flight, we'll suddenly see a chick missing from the nest. Once the chick leaves, the mother will likely leave as well to monitor and encourage the chick as it strikes out into the larger world. In the next web log, we'll talk more about first flights and what happens when the chick takes that first scary plunge.

A couple more photos I wanted to point out: We had a not-so-fun moment regarding the youngest on Monday. During a feeding session, the youngest was sitting near the edge of the nest when one of the older chicks lunged at it, we assume in an effort to teach the smallest to be submissive. With the bully's aggressive jump, the youngest looked like it was about to get knocked from the nest, with it's head hanging out over the platform. Fortunately the youngest dug its talons in and tucked its head below the platform wall, but it still felt like a close call.

Also, at the beginning of the week the chicks had to tolerate some very hot weather. As anyone who has been in the mid-Atlantic area during summer knows, the region can get unbearably hot and humid, often feeling like a tropical rainforest. Although the chicks enjoy cooler temperatures by the Blackwater River, they were clearly uncomfortable for most of Monday, and in this photo you can see them with their eyes closed and mouths open. Birds don't have sweat glands, so heat is lost through the respiratory tract. Biologists report that songbirds pant, while birds like ospreys and eagles rapidly vibrate the upper throat and thin floor of the mouth (called "gular flutter").

Last year when we had two chicks, we experienced a brutal July and August with record temperatures. During the hottest periods, we saw some rather touching photos of the mother draping her wings over the chicks as the young birds clung to her for shade. Here's hoping this summer is not as harsh since our current mother might have trouble shading all four chicks at the same time.

Recently we had several periods where we could clearly see all the chicks separately and make a relatively good size comparison. In this photo, I combined a shot from when the chicks were about 10 days old with a shot from this week to show how much they have changed in just over a month. Amazing growth!

And on a final cam note, if you look in the upper-left corner of the cam image, you will see a patch of trees, which just became visible when we installed the new cam and straightened out our view. The trees that you see are part of a longer patch of forest where bald eagles sometimes like to sit. If you see the mother osprey looking in that direction or calling out, it's probably because there are eagles there and she isn't happy about their close proximity. In fact, our mother from last year took it upon herself to fly over there and dive bomb a couple of bothersome eagles.

Visitor Center Observatory

On a slightly different osprey topic, we recently updated our Renovation page on our website with photos showing the progress we are making in adding a second floor to our Visitor Center. Once the renovations are done toward the end of the year, we will open the second floor to the public, and osprey lovers should definitely come check it out when the next osprey nesting season rolls around.

On the second floor we will have our "Wild Birds Unlimited Observatory" where visitors can look through large observation windows out onto the Blackwater River, the wetlands and also the Osprey Cam nest. We will have high-quality spotting scopes installed so when the ospreys return in March, you will be able to peer right into the osprey platform and see the action for yourself. You might even be able to see the ospreys fishing in the river. If you'd like to know when we will be holding our Grand Opening for the entire building, you can join the Friends of Blackwater email mailing list, which we use to update folks on upcoming events and the latest news from the Refuge. [Note: Once you subscribe, you'll receive an email that will require your confirmation, and then you will be added to the list. If you don't get a confirmation email, check to make sure that your email provider has not marked the email as spam.]

For those who didn't see the earlier announcement I made, we are in the middle of our Name the Osprey Chicks Contest, so be sure to visit our Contest page where you can find out more about entering. Remember that the contest will end on July 14.

And last but not least, I have one osprey photo to share that isn't from Blackwater: Russ Yeaton, one of our cam watchers, took this wonderful photo of a nest at Spring Point Light in South Portland, Maine. Much thanks to Russ for the great shot of these handsome young chicks.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)