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