It’s now been more than three days since the laying of our third egg, so we think we can safely say that our full clutch is here. For those who are keeping track, here is our scorecard:

1st egg laid: 04/25/08
Possible hatch: 06/02/08

2nd egg laid: 04/28/08
Possible hatch: 06/05/08

3rd egg laid: 05/01/08
Possible hatch: 06/08/08

This means our eggs were laid about two weeks later than our 2006 nest (our last successful nest), so that’s not too bad as far as late starts go. A normal osprey clutch is 2-3 eggs, so this clutch size is normal, and if all of them hatch, three chicks will certainly keep our parents hopping.

Speaking of the late start our pair made in nesting this year, back when we first saw our pair on the nest, we mentioned that we thought we saw two different males mating with our female in some of the mating shots. But our couple seemed to settle down quickly and no real drama appeared at the nest, so we assumed that if a second male was around, he left.

On Saturday, I was at the Refuge and saw a third bird try to land on the platform, while our couple was there together. I happened to be taping footage from the live camera when this particular event occurred, and after looking at the footage, it appears that it was a male that tried to land on the nest. And in the footage below you’ll see our female chased him off. (Left-click on the video link to play the WMV file or right-click and choose “Save Target As” to download)

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Also, in Bob Quinn’s latest trip to the Refuge, you can see photos of two ospreys flying together. Bob said these two birds were chasing each other in the general area of the cam nest, and since they both appear to be male, this might be our father and the intruder.

So what does this mean? We’re not exactly sure. It could be a young single male that has been checking out the nest, or it could be a returning former chick that is seen as a threat (since there are eggs in the nest and this might not be his parents), or it could be our second male from the beginning of the season.

We don’t like seeing our couple disturbed by another osprey, especially since our pair seem to be progressing nicely with their domestic routine. We hope that the male will get the message that this nest is now taken with our resident pair. But it’s possible he might come back and try to land again, especially if he isn’t mated and has lots of time on his hands, so to speak.

As for our resident mother and father, we’re very happy to see that they’ve been doing an excellent job as a couple. While I was watching them at the Refuge Visitor Center Saturday, I saw a nice changeover between the pair, and you can see that in the video below.

Our father likes to sit on top of the camera arm, and I’ve seen him sitting there with a fish and even with sod, and sometimes you see pieces of fish or sod fall down in front of the camera. :-)

On Saturday, I saw him eating a fish up there, and the female was calling to him to bring some of it down into the nest for her. Finally he obliged, and she quickly took the meal and then flew around to the other side of the platform to eat it. Once she had her meal, the father settled down on the eggs and took his turn at incubation. So our couple is doing just what we would hope, and we’ll keep our fingers crossed that they will continue on this way until early June when our eggs should begin hatching.

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Eggs

We can tell from our cam images that our eggs appear to have variations in their coloring. Two of them look like they have a rusty color and the third egg appears quite bright in color. Here is a shot I wanted to share from the Connecticut Audubon Osprey Cam, where they now have four eggs. This photo provides a better close up of osprey eggs, and you can see how all the eggs have a mottled or speckled appearance. Also notice that while three appear rusty or pinkish in color, one is brighter than the others — like ours.

Noted ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent once called osprey eggs “the handsomest of all the hawks’ eggs” due to their color variations, and osprey eggs have been among the most sought after prizes by egg collectors for many years. In fact, in England and Scotland, this egg popularity helped lead to the catastrophic collapse of osprey populations there, and they are just beginning to recover.

Now that our full clutch is here, our osprey parents will share in the incubation duties, although the female will do most of the incubating. About every hour, the eggs will be turned and then returned to a spot against the parent’s brood patch, which is a bare area on the bird’s stomach where hot blood is close to the surface of the skin and extra heat is generated. Both the osprey parents have a brood patch, although the female’s is larger.

Incubation for ospreys at our platform seems to be about 38-39 days, so that’s what I based our potential hatch dates on, but technically hatching could come anywhere from 35-43 days, depending on the egg’s development.

Thanks to all those who have been sending in shots for our Gallery. If you’re new to our cams and you wonder how people submit photos, you can find instructions for sending in photos here. We’ll try to update the Gallery again within the next week.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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

Although our ospreys do not have eggs yet, we felt it was time to open the 2008 Osprey Cam Web Log because our couple appears to be progressing in their nesting activity and could be close to producing an egg.

If you’re new to our Osprey Cam, I urge you to read our Osprey Facts page and also our Osprey Cam Q&A page, both of which provide lots of interesting information about ospreys in the Chesapeake Bay area, as well as information about our osprey cam setup. And if you’re a teacher, I should also point out that we have an osprey curriculum guide on our Cam Central page.

Ospreys have rebounded from the deadly era of DDT in the 1950s and 1960s and are now common around the Chesapeake Bay, and it’s a perfect habitat for them — lots of fish in shallow water. Although we love our bald eagles dearly, many of us have a special fondness for our ospreys, which are spunky raptors that can be a lot of fun to watch.

2008 Osprey Cam

At this point we strongly believe we have a new osprey pair at the nest this year. As our cam watchers from last year remember, the 2007 season was the first season in our 7 years of the Osprey Cam that we did not see chicks at the nest. A female intruder lured our male away, and our resident female was stuck alone with the three eggs. After a while she had to leave to feed, and while she was gone, a crow came in and quickly punctured all three eggs.

Normally ospreys — like bald eagles — are very loyal to their partners and nests, but the aggressive intruder was enough of a disruption to our nest that the pair failed to produce a brood. When ospreys and eagles fail during the nesting season, they sometimes “divorce” or move to another nest the following year. This season, we did not see our normal pair return on time, and instead this new pair — what looks like a young pair — took the nest. They have been slow to claim it and slow to build the stick portion of their home. Also, volunteers and staff at the Refuge have noticed that they are a bit more nervous about people being on the road that runs in front of the cam nest — a road called the Wildlife Drive. All of this evidence makes us think they are a new, and possibly young, couple.

Cam watchers have asked if our couple is late in producing an egg; the answer is yes, they are later than we are used to, but they’re not too late and still have plenty of time to produce eggs. Obviously we would prefer to see eggs soon as it will give the chicks plenty of time to perfect their flying and fishing skills before they have to migrate in September or early October. But we do feel hopeful about this couple because they’ve been building the nest and mating frequently, and the male has been dutifully bringing fish to the female to show he’s a good provider, so things look promising.

Cam watchers have also asked about the dark blobs they see in the nest. Those are balls of marsh sod — the ospreys like them in the nest, kind of as a soft filler on top of the hard sticks. We’ve recently seen photos of the ospreys using their chests to mold the nest cup, which is the area where we often see the sod. This is another good sign that the ospreys are getting ready for an egg.

Osprey Videos

I was out at the Refuge last week — on the Wildlife Drive — and captured some video of our cam male bringing in a fish. He sat above the camera and ate the head first (a common habit for eagles and ospreys) and then finally went down into the nest where the female was waiting for him to share the meal. It was interesting to see how long the fish kept flapping even as it was being eaten! Made me feel sorry for the fish. :-)

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After I left the cam nest, I happened upon a different osprey perched in a tree. In this clip you can see how an osprey cleans its beak after eating a fish dinner. The ospreys and eagles on our osprey platform sometimes use the side of the cam box to clean their beaks in this same way. Also in this clip you can see how ospreys slice (or relieve themselves). Both adults and chicks are able to shoot it rather far, which keeps the nest tidy.

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One thing I should point out about the video I took at the cam platform is that I recorded it from inside my car. As I mentioned earlier, we have noticed that our new osprey pair gets very nervous when they see people near their nest. If you visit the Refuge and go on our Wildlife Drive to see the Osprey Cam, we ask that you observe the ospreys from your car. The birds don’t seem bothered by cars (which are just objects to them), but when you exit the car and stand near the road that leads to their nest, they recognize you as “people” and get upset and call out or fly away. So we’re asking visitors to please keep this in mind if they visit the cam nest this spring. And you’ll know you’re at the cam nest because right behind it is our Visitor Center off in the distance.

Osprey Photos

In this log entry, I also have some osprey photos to share. These were sent in by some very generous folks who recently visited Blackwater Refuge.

In this first shot, you can see our two cam ospreys bringing in new material to the nest. Thanks to Tom Lorsung for this shot.

And in this second shot, Scott Young captured a wonderful image of two ospreys at one of our water platforms. Thanks also to Scott.

And be sure to check out Bob Quinn’s recent osprey photos, in case you didn’t see my note on the cam page.

Technical Issue

I wanted to address one technical issue. We are now keeping both the Eagle Cam and Osprey Cam at 30-second updates. In the past, due to limitations with our satellite dish bandwidth, we had to keep one cam at 30 seconds and the other at 60 seconds. But recently we upgraded our dish modem, and the new technology allow us to get a higher bandwidth limit on our account, so we can now keep both our cams at 30-second updates all year long.

I’ve had several cam watchers ask if we can go faster than 30 seconds — we probably could but it makes it hard for our visitors using dial-up to watch. If it’s less than 30 seconds, the image doesn’t have enough time to load before the next image arrives on a dial-up account, so 30 seconds will be the lowest we will go with refresh times.

Osprey Activity on the Web

If you’re looking for other Osprey Cams to check out, I can point you to several that have eggs or recent activity:

Connecticut Audubon Osprey Cam
Montezuma NWR Osprey Cam in upstate New York
Minnesota Osprey Cam

Finland Osprey Cam — the best view of any osprey cam (click on Kohde 1)
Finland Osprey Cam

(Note: sääksi is “osprey” in Finnish)

Rutland Osprey Cam in central England
Lake District Osprey Cam in northern England

Loch Garten Osprey Cam in Scotland
Loch of the Lowes Osprey Cam in Scotland (click on osprey photo)

One thing I wanted to point out is the nest at the Montezuma NWR Osprey Cam. We keep saying our Blackwater ospreys had a lot of work to do to rebuild their nest, but look at the miracle the Montezuma ospreys performed in just six days. Busy birds!

We want to thank all those who have been sending in photos of our 2008 osprey pair, and we thank everyone for joining us for another year with the Osprey Cam. We very much hope our new couple can produce chicks for everyone to enjoy.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

Tags:
wildlife refuge, osprey cam, ospreys, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland