It’s been a while since we’ve updated the blog, since the nest has been very quiet. Our pair has been at the nest on and off, as they are still defending it and bringing in new sticks. Some cam watchers might wonder why the ospreys hang around the nest when they have no chicks to raise; the reason they stay is that it’s important that they defend the nest if they hope to come back next year and use the platform for another season. If they abandoned it now, other ospreys (like an unattached male or a pair without a nest) might think it’s available and take it for their own. So our couple stays near the nest and practices their nest building.

Since we don’t have much to say about our nest, I thought I’d use this post to talk about some of the other osprey action that we’ve been monitoring. If you didn’t see my earlier post on the cam page about Bob Quinn’s recent osprey banding trip, then be sure to check out his gallery. Bob went on an osprey banding trip at Patuxent River Park in southern Maryland. The park’s osprey population has had a tough year. First, several big storms caused quite a few nest failures, and then a Great Horned Owl has been not only killing osprey chicks at the park but also killing some of the osprey mothers. In fact, while Bob was on the boat banding ospreys, his group found a dead female osprey in the water under one of the water platforms. Pretty amazing to think of an owl taking out full-grown adult ospreys.

Speaking of Bob’s photos, I did want to point out a few of his shots that were particularly interesting because they show some wonderful close-ups. In this first shot, you can see two chicks hunkered down inside the nest. Osprey young know instinctively to lay low in the nest when they hear their parents call out in alarm; this technique works well since their feathers blend in with the sticks and help camouflage them.

In this second shot, you can see a great close-up of a banded youngster (see the band on its left foot). Notice that the osprey chick has scale-like bumps on its lower legs and feet. These scales are called spicules and they help the osprey hold onto slippery fish. Also, notice that the youngster has orange eyes; the eyes will turn yellow once the bird matures. Finally notice the tan tips on its feathers, which is another sign that the bird is young. The feathers will eventually turn all brown once the bird reaches sexual maturity.

In this third shot, we get a great view of an osprey chick’s blood feathers. When feathers first develop, they are encased in a sheath that is made of keratin (like your fingernails). This sheath protects the feathers and feeds them with blood until the feathers are fully developed — hence the name blood feathers. Once the feather has developed, the sheath falls off (or is pulled off by the bird) and the feather unfurls. In this photo, we can see the blood (the blue color) feeding the developing feathers. Anyone handling a bird with blood feathers must be careful, because if one of them tears, the feather can bleed quite a lot.

In this fourth shot, we see a mother osprey skimming the water with her talons to cool down; this is a behavior that is common during the summer. In fact, on June 11, the Connecticut Audubon Osprey Cam reported similar behavior by their osprey adults. Their website said, “With the intense heat of the last several days, the adults have been using their bodies as an umbrella to shield the four chicks from the sun. We’ve also seen the adults skimming the surface of the water to wet their breast feathers and return to the nest to cool the chicks down.” It’s interesting to see how the adult ospreys use water to help keep themselves and their chicks cool.

And in this final shot, we see a wonderful example of the osprey’s third eyelid — or nictitating membrane. The ospreys use these translucent eyelids to clean their eyes and to protect them from harm — such as while fishing or feeding their young.

In addition to Bob’s incredible osprey shots, I also have a couple osprey tales to share. First, the Marine Study Nature Area in New York has an online Osprey Cam where they have four healthy chicks. Unfortunately, the youngest chick got entangled in a discarded balloon ribbon and a rescue had to be arranged, which you can see on YouTube. The Marine Study Nature Area website also links to a BBC article on the dangers of balloons in the environment. Be sure to read about the need to eliminate discarded balloons for the sake of wildlife.

Another interesting osprey story happened a couple weeks ago at an osprey nest in St. Michael’s Harbor in Maryland, where the nest fell into the water. Fortunately, some of the workers at the nearby Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum saw it happen and managed to get to the chick immediately. They took care of it overnight and then it was transported to Tri-State Bird Rescue by Suzi Feldhuhn, a friend of ours who is a volunteer at Tri-State. On the following Monday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to renest the single chick in a neighboring nest that already had two chicks. Suzi told us it was a very successful renesting with the chick being accepted by its new family. As for the original pair that lost their nest, they’re in the area and are building a new nest on a nearby platform.

Suzi was kind enough to send us the two photos below showing the chick being placed in its new nest and then sitting with its new siblings. Click on the thumbnails for a larger image.

Many osprey nests around the Net are starting to see young birds fledging. As we mentioned on the cam page, the chicks at the North Carolina Osprey Cam and Kentucky Osprey Cam have begun to fledge, and the four chicks at the Connecticut Osprey Cam are also close to going. Here is a great shot showing one of them hovering above the nest. We wish all these young birds the best of luck as they begin venturing out into the world.

Partial Closure of Wildlife Drive

As a final note, for those cam watchers who might be planning a trip to Blackwater Refuge this summer, I wanted to remind you that a portion of the Wildlife Drive at the Refuge will be closed for about two months while we repair an impoundment that protects the Drive from the Blackwater River. Only the first section of the Drive will be closed, so you will still be able to access the latter section of the road. Also, while we have the road closed, we also plan to repair our Marsh Edge Trail boardwalk, so hopefully by the time all the work is done, we’ll have an improved trail and Wildlife Drive. Read our press release for more information about what services will be available if you come.

Thanks again to all those who are sending in cam images to our galleries. We don’t update the galleries as often these days because the action is slow, but we will update them soon and we appreciate any images of interesting action that you see.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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Tags:
wildlife refuge, ospreys, osprey cam, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland

I wanted to give an update on our osprey couple and also offer a few photos from some of the other osprey cam nests that are seeing interesting action.

First, our couple: As we said on the cam page, we’ve seen more mating and more nest building from the ospreys, although at this late date, we really don’t expect more eggs. But nevertheless, it’s good to see our pair still together and bonding. If they decide to return to this same nest next year, then hopefully they will have a strong foundation as a couple and have success raising a family.

Some folks did ask about the old eggshell in the nest — that is one of the eggs the crow broke when we lost our clutch. It’s likely the shell is empty at this point.

Other Osprey Nests

In case you weren’t aware, the Connecticut Audubon Osprey Cam now has four chicks, which is an amazing achievement. This couple is an experienced pair, so we’re hoping they can handle such a crowded nest. For those who were not with us back in 2006, the Blackwater Osprey Cam had four chicks during that season and all managed to fledge, which is somewhat unusual in the osprey world as often one or two of the chicks won’t make it to fledging age when there are four. Visit our Cam Central page to see our gallery and web log from the 2006 Osprey Cam season.

One more thing I wanted to mention about the Connecticut Osprey Cam: This is one of the rare nests we’ve seen where the father regularly feeds the mother food.

Another nest I’ve been watching is the North Carolina Osprey Cam, and since they’ve moved that cam into a better position, we’re getting to see some nice shots of the family.

In this first shot I captured, we can see the whole family together. The father is nearest the camera and the mother is next to him (see her brown “necklace”). In the nest is the couple’s two chicks and one unhatched egg. Notice the chick has a white stripe down its back — when the chicks are lying in the nest, the stripes help camouflage them by making them look like another stick.

In this next shot we get a better look at the stripe and also a look at the oldest chick’s crop, where extra food is stored for later consumption.

The third shot shows the youngest chick flapping its wings and shows the mother watching the youngster.

And in the fourth shot we get a good close-up of the female taking oil from her preening gland (near the base of her tail), which she will use to clean and waterproof her feathers.

Another interesting nest is the Kentucky Osprey Cam where they have three chicks. Be sure to check out their excellent video clips that make you feel like you’re in the nest. This cam offers a good illustration of the second stage of chick development. First, the osprey chicks come out cute and light colored, but then they enter what’s called their reptilian stage when they look like little dinosaurs, and in this photo you can see the oldest chick is in that stage now.

For more osprey cams on the Net, see my April 19 post. And I did want to point out that one of the Finland osprey cams has moved to a new URL. It’s the cam I said had such a fantastic view, and you can now find it here; just click on the osprey photo. And remember Finland time is about 7 hours ahead of Eastern Time in the U.S.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
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Tags:
wildlife refuge, ospreys, osprey cams, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland

First, I wanted to say that we’ll try to get the Gallery updated in the next couple of days, so everyone can see all the photos. But basically the short version of what happened is we think the heavy, cold rain that has been hitting the area hard was too much for the couple (especially the female), so she left the eggs alone for over an hour — twice — this afternoon, and eventually a crow came in and broke them.

This storm has caused major problems throughout Maryland with quite a bit of flooding and coastal flood warnings in the county where Blackwater Refuge is located. But on top of that rain, we also had very cool temperatures, and this appeared to be too much for our parents.

The mother stuck with the eggs through the worst of it today, but this afternoon she suddenly got up and disappeared for about an hour. At that time, we became worried about the eggs’ viability because the temperature was very cool. She then returned (we think it was the female) but then disappeared again. During the second long absence, a crow came in several times and eventually broke and possibly took part of the eggs. The egg remnants you see in the nest are the remains of what the crow did not take. We have seen one of the parents (probably the female) coming and sitting where the eggs had been. We saw this last year too, but eventually our female realized the eggs were gone.

We are honestly surprised that this happened, because even though we thought we had a young couple, they appeared to be doing very well. It’s quite possible that if we hadn’t had such a cold storm, the female might have made it through the full incubation. But sometimes young parents do things like this, and lose their eggs to predators.

I did want to point out that although we lost our eggs last year in an identical fashion (to a crow), our couple last year was impacted by a third osprey — an intruder female — and our male abandoned the nest for a period of time. When the female eventually left to fish for herself, a crow came in and broke the eggs. We do not think that happened this year because we had been seeing both parents regularly — including a couple of times on Monday. So the male intruder we mentioned previously in the web log did not appear to be a factor in this unfortunate turn of events today. It was more likely the weather.

Cam watchers have asked about a second clutch. Sometimes raptor parents will lay a second clutch if they lose their first, but since our couple was late in nesting this year, and since they appear to be young and a bit inexperienced, I’m not really expecting a second clutch. I may be wrong, but I think we’ll see the ospreys hanging around the nest for the rest of the summer, maybe even mating occasionally, but not producing any chicks for this year.

I think the best we can hope for is that they will return next year and give it another try. If they do, they’ll be more experienced and possibly more determined to stick with the eggs no matter what kind of weather they face.

No matter what happens the rest of this season, we’ll keep the Osprey Cam online. Like last year, we will keep it up to see what the ospreys do; and if they are not around as much, we might even see the return of our bald eagles on the platform. It’s true that we do turn off the Eagle Cam once the eaglets leave for good, but that is only because once the eagle family is gone, we see very little wildlife on the Eagle Cam (the occasional squirrel or Blue jay). But we like to leave the Osprey Cam on all year because the platform attracts a lot of bird life, and it’s enjoyable to watch no matter what the season.

We’ll keep the web log open for now, just because we’re not absolutely sure how our osprey pair will deal with this unexpected development. And we’re sorry for all our cam watchers who were really excited about the prospect of osprey chicks this year — especially since we were without them last year for the first time since we came online with our Osprey Cam back in 2001. But it was not meant to be.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

Tags:
eagles, wildlife refuge, osprey cam, osprey eggs, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland