Osprey Cam Web Log 2007

Fledging Time

I apologize for the delay in updating the web log. I was on a beach vacation with my family in beautiful Nags Head, North Carolina, but now we're back, so it's time for a raptor update. :-)

Galleries

First, I wanted to say that we finally finished off the Eagle Cam Gallery with some last photos. Thanks again to all those who submitted their photos throughout the season. This gallery is now closed, and we'll start a new one in December once the Eagle Cam goes live again.

Also, we've updated the Osprey Cam Gallery with new photos of our birds at the nest, as well as with photos of visiting birds including crows, a vulture, a Great blue heron, and red-winged blackbirds. In the Gallery update you'll also see a photo with a tractor in the background. Our helpful ranger Tom Miller said that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the tractor to break up the soil for future planting -- planting that is done to benefit the migratory waterfowl that comes in the fall. So what exactly do they plant? Tom said they will likely plant Japanese millet -- a fast-growing grass, which produces a lot of edible seeds, grows well in marsh areas, and is favored by migratory ducks.

Blackwater Osprey Cam

Things have been relatively quiet at the Blackwater Osprey Cam. We occasionally see a male and female on the nest, but of course these birds are without chicks this year, so they come and go as they please. Often the adults show up to eat a meal, tidy the nest, or announce to the rest of the Refuge that the nest is taken and trespassers should stay away.

We expect our ospreys might leave for migration a little early since they have no young. This might mean that they will be gone before the end of August. If this happens, we should see bald eagles on the nest not long after they leave. Some cam watchers have asked if the eagles would ever nest on the platform, and the answer is no. It's too close to people (on the Wildlife Drive), it's too shallow, and it's not in a tree. The eagles can find a lot of nice loblolly pine trees in and around the Refuge, and these trees would be the eagles' first choice for a nesting location.

Something worth watching for on the Osprey Cam in the next few weeks is visiting immature ospreys. Newly fledged osprey young sometimes make visits to neighboring nests, either to rest on the nest or to solicit a free meal from the resident adults. Often adult ospreys will not chase off the strange young and sometimes will even feed them. In the past, we have caught a couple brief glimpses of what was clearly an extra chick on our nest, although the youngster didn't stay long. The best way to spot immature ospreys is to look for light tan coloring on the end of their brown wing tips. Adults do not have the tan tips but instead have solid brown wing feathers.

In the following photos from the Finland Osprey Cam you can see the difference in the adult and immature feathers.

Other Osprey Cams

All over the Web we're seeing young ospreys fledge. Two osprey chicks have fledged at the Puleston Osprey Cam in Long Island. All three chicks have fledged at the Kentucky Osprey Cam. Both chicks have fledged at the Connecticut Audubon Osprey Cam. And two chicks have fledged at the North Carolina Osprey Cam. The NC cam has had some bad luck this year -- their camera got hit by poop, and then a bad drought in the Mid-Atlantic kept their camera from getting cleaned by a good rain, so they're still struggling with a clouded view.

At Sturgeon Lake in Minnesota, it appears that the two osprey chicks are still nest bound, but they will probably go soon. The same is true for the two chicks at Montezuma NWR in upstate New York. And at the nest we follow at Spring Point in South Portland, Maine, the one chick is getting close to fledging time. [Note that fledglings in northern areas usually begin flying a little later than fledglings in southern areas.]

As for European nests, at Loch of the Lowes in Scotland, both chicks have fledged and are doing well.

As for the Finland Osprey Cam, we had mentioned on our cam page that we heard that one cam chick had been found dead when they went up to band the birds. No word on what might have been wrong. Normally if a chick is not going to make it, the nestling dies in the first few weeks of life, so it was a little odd to lose a chick this late. But the bird might have had problems that we couldn't see on the cam.

One of our cam watchers did catch a photo of the bander going up and also a shot of the mother feeding the remaining chick after the bander had left.

At the second Finland Osprey Cam (where the resident couple didn't breed) we did see some handsome hooded crows on the nest. (Hooded crows can be found in Europe and Asia.) One of the best things about bird cams from other countries is that sometimes birds show up that are unfamiliar to us, and it's fun getting a chance to see such different species.

Finland Osprey Gallery

Speaking of Finland, someone recently alerted me to an incredible online photo gallery showing shots of an osprey fishing in Finland. These are some of the best osprey action photos I've ever seen. Especially amazing are the shots of the osprey catching two fish at a time.

It's worth noting that the fishing skills that this osprey is displaying are the same skills that all osprey fledglings must attain over the nest month if they are going to survive to adulthood. Ospreys are known as possibly the best anglers in nature, but these skills take time to develop, and the osprey chicks that develop them the fastest will have a better chance of surviving migration and the difficult path to breeding age.

Miscellaneous Eagle Note

As we mentioned in a recent Eagle Cam Web Log entry, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to remove the bald eagle from the threatened and endangered species list. In recognition of this event, the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice has posted a nice eagle tribute video on YouTube that I thought you might enjoy. It offers some great footage of eagles flying and fishing, and since our Eagle Cam is now offline, it's nice to once again see eagles in action.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
(contact)

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.

1.8 MB

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
(contact)