July 07, 2007
Local Ospreys and Bay Islands
We've been seeing a few appearances by our ospreys throughout the day, although it seems like they're spending less time actually on the nest. This has allowed other birds, such as crows and Great blue herons, to pay a visit while the ospreys are out of the area. These visitors don't stay too long, and are easily chased off by the returning ospreys, but it's still interesting to see what types of birds visit the nest. We're looking forward to the appearance of bald eagles on the platform once the ospreys exit the area for migration.
I wanted to pass along some other miscellaneous news that we've come across over the last week. First the eagle news.
Eagle News
Several cam watchers who have been with us for a while have asked if we ever heard any more about the Blackwater eaglets that were taken to Vermont as part of the Vermont Bald Eagle Restoration Initiative. The Initiative was an effort to establish a breeding population of bald eagles in the only state without a successful breeding pair, and several eaglets were taken from Blackwater Refuge (and were joined with eaglets from other states) and relocated to Vermont so they would fledge there. I just heard from one of the program people, and they report the following: They've had no more deceased recoveries since finding an eaglet hit by a train in the fall of 2005; a few young eagles (1-3 yrs old) have been seen in the vicinity of the Vermont hack site this spring, but no one has read any bands to confirm that they are birds that were released; also the 2006 eagle pair (not related to the eaglets) lost its nest last year in a bad wind storm, and while they started to build a new nest in the early spring, they did not follow through with incubation activity. Finally, the Vermont Initiative people did a survey in the Champlain Basin for potential nests in April, but did not find any.
The good news is that the Vermont people haven't found any other eaglets since the birds' release, and we hope that means that the eaglets are healthy and will return to Vermont once they mature, at which point they will begin breeding and nesting.
In other eagle news, one of our cam watchers recently captured a great video clip of one of the eaglets at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens' Eagle Cam. In this video you can see how the eaglet pants to keep itself cool, and you can also see how it uses its eyelids. Left-click on the link below to play the Windows Media Video file or right-click and choose "Save Target As" to download to your computer.
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Osprey News
We had some sad news from the Osprey Cam at Sturgeon Lake in Minnesota. The youngest of their three chicks died this past week. The cam owners believe it was due to competition from the older siblings, although it's somewhat unusual to lose an osprey chick this late in the season. Normally osprey chicks succumb to sibling rivalry in the first couple weeks of life. It's possible there was something else wrong with the chick -- maybe it had a disease or other hard-to-detect affliction -- but we'll never know. We wish the best of luck to the two remaining chicks.
In other news, a local Delaware publication had an encouraging article on our nearby Delaware ospreys. Good to hear they're doing so well.
Also, I wanted to point out an amazing osprey gallery that one of our cam watchers alerted me to. This online gallery is by photographer Jim Thiel and it offers some amazing photos of a variety of animals, including bald eagles and ospreys. I especially liked the unusual photos showing a crow mobbing an osprey. (Crows and some other smaller birds react to predators by mobbing them, especially during nesting season.) Another good photo on this gallery site showed an immature eagle chasing an osprey carrying a fish. Eagles are known for stealing fish from ospreys on a regular basis, and the eagles learn this behavior at a young age.
Osprey Nests in the Chesapeake Bay
Many folks who live outside of Maryland don't realize this but the Chesapeake Bay has many islands that host a wealth of bird life. The value of these islands is that they are often isolated and undeveloped, so the birds can nest relatively undisturbed.
Our friend Melanie Lynch from Chesapeake Bay Magazine just went on a boat trip out to Holland Island, which is south of Blackwater Refuge in the Chesapeake Bay. While Melanie was taking in the local birding action, she saw a naturally based osprey nest (meaning it wasn't built on an artificial platform) that was situated in a tree. Apparently the ospreys' nest had begun to slide down the tree, but the ospreys just rebuilt on top of it. This was an interesting photo since many of us are used to only seeing ospreys nesting on artificial, human-made platforms.
Also recently, Bob Quinn shared a group of photos that he took on a trip to Smith Island (south of Holland Island), and his shots show us another side of osprey nesting -- that ospreys like to build their nests on channel markers. This fondness for building nests on channel markers in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay has produced some tension between our local fish hawks and the Coast Guard, especially since it's been reported that over half of Chesapeake ospreys call channel markers home. The Coast Guard used to automatically remove all the nests, but now they supposedly only do so if the nest is interfering with boater safety.
Speaking of Holland and Smith Islands, their fates are far from secure. Many islands in the Bay are succumbing to rising sea levels, and Holland and Smith are both losing their battle with the rising water. There are efforts underway to try to save them, although such projects are very expensive and difficult to undertake.
You can read an interesting article at Chesapeake Life Magazine about the erosion and slow disappearance of Holland Island. The loss of these islands affects both the fishing communities that used to thrive on them and also the wildlife species that now call them home.
Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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