May 20, 2007
No Chicks
Well, this will go down as the strangest year we've had in our seven years with the Blackwater Osprey Cam. Thank goodness every year isn't like this.
As of last Sunday, we have not seen a definite sign of our second adult, which we believe to be the father osprey. The female osprey on the nest had been alone all week with no apparent help in incubating or finding fish. The mother dutifully stayed with the eggs for most of the week, doing very little eating, bathing or preening. On Friday afternoon she seemed to be tiring as she stayed off the eggs for many hours in the afternoon, diminishing the chances that they would hatch. On Saturday morning, she was off of the eggs again, in rather cool weather, and this time she actually left the nest area (possibly to feed). During this time, local birds noticed the eggs, and the female returned to chase them off. But then when she left the second time, a crow came in and quickly punctured all three eggs.
To be honest, I don't think the eggs were viable at that point anyway, but it was still hard to watch the crow take out each egg. And no one can blame the female for needing to take care of herself; she was in an impossible situation. If she did manage to hatch any of the eggs, it would have been even more difficult to watch her struggle to keep the chicks warm and also feed them by herself.
Some cam watchers asked if we would ever intervene. Normally we do not, since we like to treat the cam nests as if we are not watching them, thus letting nature take its course. But our ranger did tell me yesterday that if the eggs had hatched, we might have looked around for ways to re-nest the young either ourselves or through a local group like Tri-State Bird Rescue, even though we have never had to deal with this problem before and would have been striking new ground.
In the end, what happened may have been for the best if the father osprey was not going to return to help. Osprey eggs and chicks need two parents for a reason, and that is because one adult cannot protect the young and keep them warm while also chasing off intruders and looking for food. It's just too much for one bird.
We don't know what happened to the male osprey. We do know the intruder bird is still around, so it's possible the male was hurt in a battle with the intruder. Also birds do perish for various reasons -- West Nile virus, bird flu, and other diseases and ailments. Sometimes ospreys drown when fishing, such as when they get tangled up in fishing line that someone has thoughtlessly left in the water.
But what makes us think the male may have been hurt or killed is that the male was not around to help with the eggs. As we mentioned before, on somewhat rare occasions a male osprey might take up a second family, but it is unusual for him to abandon his other nest, mate and eggs altogether. He has too much invested in the home nest to do this -- especially considering how hard our male had to fight to keep the cam nest after the intruder appeared. And ospreys are known for being exceedingly loyal to their nests. This makes us wonder if something might have happened to the father to prevent him from returning.
But I'll throw a further wrench into the dilemma: Yesterday local photographer Bob Quinn was at the cam nest photographing some of the action. He saw a male and second female near the nest. They were flying over the platform but not landing on it. Bob says that one bird had a fish and the other was chasing it. The bird being chased looked female and the other bird looked male. The male landed on a post in the marsh on the opposite side of the road near the Osprey Cam. You can see the photos here.
While this female could be the intruder female that has been such a pain most of the season, who is the male? It seems highly unlikely it would be our male since it would not sit there ignoring our female calling for food, ignoring his eggs, and ignoring the crow that attacked them. So is it a male that has been attracted to our female by her calls for food and her lack of a mate? We just don't know, and we'll never really know all that happened, so the best we can do now is look ahead.
As for the rest of the season, our female is not likely to lay any more eggs -- it's late in the season and second clutches are rare, even if she managed to copulate again with a male. Individual ospreys that do not have a family often wander around their home area and even leave early for migration, but our female has ties to this nest, so she might feel an obligation to remain there for most of the summer, defending the nest from other ospreys and from opportunistic eagles. She might even be able to bond with another male before she migrates, but we'll just have to wait and see what develops.
For those who are new to our Osprey Cam and have not had the fun of watching osprey chicks in action, I wanted to share some links to videos that we posted last year when we had our record four osprey chicks. Here you can see what osprey chicks look like when they're young and when they begin to fledge. Note that on the last set of videos, the view is a little blurry -- we had a big problem with poop hitting the camera lens last year, since we had so many osprey bodies in the nest. :-)
Archives 1
Archives 2
Archives 3
Hopefully next year we will return to a normal osprey nesting season. Our Osprey Cam nest has had a good run of seeing many chicks fledge, so we know there will be better seasons ahead.
Happier Osprey News:
And now for some happier osprey news: EJ -- at the famous Loch Garten osprey nest in Scotland -- has now laid a full second clutch, which means seven eggs in total this year!! This is one record-setting osprey mom. As you remember, EJ had to lay another clutch after her late-arriving mate kicked out the eggs she had laid with another male. Maybe we should rename their cam "All My Eggs" -- after the famous American soap opera "All My Children." :-)
Also, I wanted to point out two new osprey cams that are online. The first Osprey Cam is based in Pine County, Minnesota where they have three eggs. Note that for this streaming video cam you need a broadband connection and Internet Explorer. Also, the Osprey Cam at the Montezuma Wetlands Complex in upstate New York is now live and we've been told it has three eggs. Good luck to those nests!
Osprey Platforms:
One of our cam watchers, Laura Cortner, sent in an interesting photo along with a wonderful story. In Eugene, Oregon, an osprey couple had built a nest on one of the local university's stadium lights. After the ospreys migrated and the football season began, the heat from the lights ignited the nest thus destroying it (fortunately while the ospreys were not there). With pressure from Laura and the local Raptor Center, the ospreys got a safer home in the spot where they wanted to nest. Click on the thumbnail to the right -- this is their new home and it seems to suit them just fine.
And this brings up a topic I'm asked about often by people who live near water -- the topic being "How do you construct osprey platforms?" Here you can read a web log entry I posted in a previous season discussing osprey platforms (over both land and water) and how you can find plans for building them. Unfortunately humans have taken down many of the trees that ospreys would have nested in naturally along the coast and other water areas, so human-made osprey platforms are often in big demand. In fact, the revival of osprey populations after their collapse from the pesticide DDT is often attributed to the fact that humans put up so many artificial nesting platforms for ospreys and that ospreys were so willing to use them.
If you aren't comfortable with building your own, check with your state Department of Natural Resources or your local Audubon chapter, and they might be able to put you in touch with an organization that will construct one for you. Also, if you plan to put a platform in the water, be sure to check with your state DNR to see if you need a special permit.
A few things to keep in mind about an osprey platform: The ospreys like to be on the tallest structure around since they like a clear view of the sky, but if they're over water, they will settle for a lower structure (since there are no land predators). Also ospreys catch their fish near the surface, so they like to live near water that is shallow enough for them to find food. It might take ospreys a season or two for them to adopt your nest, but once they do, they tend to be very loyal to their home, migrating back to it year after year.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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