(chick 14 weeks old)

Braveheart is now 14 weeks old, and she is still hanging around the nest. She hatched a bit late this year, so it’s not surprising that she would take a little longer to strike out on migration. We’re not sure if the father osprey is still around, but it does look like Braveheart is on her own a lot, which isn’t bad since it will force her to become more independent and will eventually encourage her to start the journey south.

Speaking of migrating youngsters, UNC research biologist Rob Bierregaard has a satellite-tagged osprey chick that has started south in an unusual way. Isabel pushed out over the ocean during her flight south, and we’re waiting to see if she made it safely to the Bahamas. Once Braveheart goes, we would expect her to stay closer to land — which is the safer way to go — and cross over into Cuba after leaving Florida.

Lead Poisoning

In this last blog post for the season I wanted to touch on an important issue that doesn’t get much attention on bird websites — the issue of lead poisoning. As some of you may recall, in 2008 a law went into effect in California that banned lead ammunition in endangered condor habitat. California condors are scavengers by nature and scientific evidence showed they were ingesting fragments of poisonous lead ammunition when scavenging on elk, deer, and coyote remains. The National Rifle Association and other supporters of lead ammunition suppliers fought to keep the lead ban from passing, but fortunately California lawmakers stepped up and did the right thing by passing the law.

Although much of the recent lead controversy has focused on California condors, the fact is raptors also ingest lead when they scavenge mammals and upland birds. In addition, anglers use lead sinkers and jigs, which can be swallowed by loons, herons, ducks and even raptors.

The impact of lead poisoning on an animal is harsh. According to the Wildlife Without Lead website:

Lead absorbed into the blood stream causes severe health consequences including neurological disorders, seizures, infertility, anemia, soft tissue damage, birth defects and death. Animals that do not die directly from lead poisoning may face sub-lethal effects of lead toxicity, such as neurological and organ damage, that ultimately contribute to their inability to survive in the wild.

In August 2009, we heard of a female bald eagle in Wisconsin that was picked up because she had high levels of lead in her body. A raptor rehabilitation blog called Taking Flight gave details on her treatment. Wildlife rehabilitator Marge Gibson wrote:

When she was admitted she was not aware of her surroundings and remained that way for a few days. She convulsed and was unable to eat whole food. When she did try a small piece she threw it up. We had to tube feed her liquid food during her worst period.

Some folks asked what I meant when I talked about “rounds” of CaEDTA shots. We do two shots a day for the first four days. Then take another blood test. If the test is in lower levels we stop the shots for four days. AT that point the blood has once again picked up lead from the bones of the birds ( where it is stored) and it is in the blood stream. At the end of the days off the shots the birds are once again beginning to show signs of lead poisoning. We start the shots again and do the same routine once more. The number of “rounds” will depend on the severity of the lead poisoning. The treatment is intense for both the bird and the rehabilitators…

In severe cases we can go through months of this kind of critical care. We x-ray the bird early on to make sure there is no free lead pieces in their digestive system. Sinkers are a big problem with birds like osprey and bald eagles. They may catch a fish that swallowed a sinker in the past…

Once the bird eats that fish, the lead poisons the bird. If there is lead, we remove it if possible. That is done surgically. If the lead was not taken out it would continue to poison the bird no matter what we did to remove the lead from the blood stream.

It seems a complicated procedure to have to navigate. Lead poisoning could be pretty much eliminated if it was banned from fishing tackle and ammunition. That will happen, but old habits die hard and people don’t seem to get it. It is hard from me to consider that a known toxin is still being used by the general public.

In a previous blog post, after the poisoned eagle was first brought in, Marge also wrote:

Lead poisoning is a human caused problem in native wildlife. It seems at least to me, it is also a human responsibility to correct the issue. That is true especially now that we are aware of the toxicity to all life including our own. Still, there are strong lobby’s for the “rights” of humans to use lead ammunition and lead fishing sinkers etc. Many do not believe it is a problem at all but something environmentalists have trumped up. One day here at REGI would change their mind. But,it is easier to close their eyes and repeat phrases others with profit margins offer. A sad commentary on our species. I wish we took the rights of the wild ones we share our world with seriously. Maybe someday we will. I hope so.

The good news is that there are non-lead alternatives that hunters and anglers can use while enjoying their sport. Below are two brochures from the Wildlife Without Lead website that describe what hunters and anglers can do to keep lead out of nature. If you have family members or friends who are hunters or anglers, please share this information with them. Wildlife faces enough challenges these days without the added danger of poisons introduced into their environment by humans.

Goodbye for Now

I want to thank everyone who has followed Braveheart and our Osprey Cam this year. Your questions, photos and support have meant a great deal to us here at Blackwater Refuge. Although we’re closing the web log for the season, we will keep the Osprey Cam Gallery open and we will be leaving the Osprey Cam online throughout the fall, since once our last osprey migrates, we expect to see bald eagles and other birds using the platform as a riverside perch.

Thanks again for your time, and we hope you’ll join us again in March 2010 when we welcome back our osprey parents for another breeding season.

Until March,
Lisa - webmaster
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Tags:
osprey, wildlife refuge, osprey cam, Blackwater Refuge, Maryland

(chick 11.5 weeks old)

In the last couple days, we’ve seen an adult on the nest briefly, but it appeared to be the male adult. I thought it was possible our female adult had started her migration since Braveheart is now more independent and possibly able to feed herself, but photographer Bob Quinn just sent me a message from the Refuge (on his iPhone) saying he saw two adults around the nest. We’re not sure if both are the cam parents, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for signs of both parents on the cam.

I did see Braveheart on the nest calling out at something earlier — as in this photo — but I’m not sure what she was agitated by; possibly another bird (maybe a bald eagle) near the nest.

Some cam watchers have asked if our ospreys will migrate because they won’t be able to survive the winter cold. It’s likely the ospreys could survive the cold — our bald eagles do — but ospreys (or fish hawks) are more closely bound to a fish-centered diet than eagles are, and to find fish in the winter our ospreys must head south where the waters are warmer and the fish more accessible.

So where will our birds go? Each member of our osprey family will migrate independently and will stop in different areas and thus not see each other during the winter. Most of the ospreys from the Mid-Atlantic fly to Central or South America, although a small percentage might stop in the Caribbean, Cuba or even southern Florida. One example of a popular area for our ospreys is the Orinoco River in South America — a beautiful spot that offers prime fishing.

If our two parents survive migration and survive their time down south (sometimes fish farmers and livestock farmers shoot ospreys in the south), they should return to the Osprey Cam platform next year — sometime around mid-March with the male possibly arriving first. Braveheart will stay down south for an extra year, as she’s a juvenile, and young birds take an extra year to sexually mature. When she returns north, she should come back to the Blackwater Refuge area to eventually seek out a mate and nesting site.

For those who are interested in learning more about the migration of Mid-Atlantic ospreys, be sure to spend some time on Rob Bierregaard’s website. Rob is a research biologist from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and he’s been satellite-tagging young ospreys for quite a few years. His Google Earth maps give a good look at where ospreys go and the often surprising routes they take in getting there.

In addition to Rob, the folks at the famous Loch Garten osprey nest in Scotland have also tagged their birds this year, and you can follow the birds’ exploits on the Loch Garten website. Keep in mind that European ospreys often go to Africa for their winter.

Finland Osprey Nest Photos

Two of our cam watchers — Deb M and Paul M — have been forwarding me some beautiful photos from one of the Finland Osprey Cams. I love this nest, and I always think it offers the best view of any raptor cam I’ve seen. In these photos we see the osprey young exercising their wings and eventually flying.
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
Photo 4

Maine Osprey Photo

A couple blog posts ago we mentioned an osprey nest at Spring Point Light in South Portland, Maine. The nest is photographed by our friend Russ Yeaton, and during the course of this season he had noticed that the ospreys had a large plant growing in the nest. Turns out the Bangor Daily News also picked up on the plant story and recently published a nice article about the nest and the identity of the plant. As for the status of the osprey family, Russ just passed along a wonderful shot showing the youngsters at the nest practicing their flying.

Potomac River Osprey Photos

Closer to home, our photographer friend Kim Taylor has shared some absolutely incredible shots she took of her local nest on the Potomac River in nearby Virginia. The first two photos are of the juvenile ospreys from the nest, and the last photo shows the father osprey bringing in a fish dinner. I’m posting these full-size so you can enjoy the details.
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3

Be sure to check out Kim’s Flickr gallery for more osprey shots.

New Osprey Nest at Blackwater

And even closer to home, our other photographer friend Bob Quinn recently passed along a photo of a curious new nest at Blackwater Refuge. Visitors to the Refuge noticed that very late this season, two adult ospreys began building a scruffy looking nest in a dead tree off the Wildlife Drive. It is too late for eggs, so we wondered what they were up to. The new nest is located near a water platform that failed to produce young this year, so there’s a chance this new nest is a “frustration nest” being built by the pair that failed at the water platform. The other possibility is that this is a nest by a new couple, and they’re exhibiting how inexperienced they are at nest building, hence the sad looking nest. We’ll have to see if whatever they build survives the winter.

Book Recommendation

And last but not least, I wanted to take a moment to offer a book recommendation to our readers — something we don’t often do here in the Blackwater web logs. This year is the 75th anniversary of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary was the world’s first refuge for wild birds of prey. However, before it became a protected refuge, it was a place where hunters used to stand on the mountain ridge and shoot thousands of hawks, eagles and ospreys from the sky as they migrated by — that was until Rosalie Edge put an end to the killing by buying Hawk Mountain and turning it into a refuge in 1934.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary, author Dyana Z. Furmansky has published the first comprehensive biography of Rosalie Edge, the conservationist who was an inspirational leader in not only establishing Hawk Mountain Sanctuary but in also establishing and expanding several national parks including Olympic and Yosemite. The biography is titled, “Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists.”

Famous bird author and naturalist Scott Weidensaul summed up the book best with his review: “Dyana Furmansky restores Rosalie Edge to her proper place in the pantheon of American conservation–a savvy, sharp-tongued, take-no-prisoners activist we should thank every time we gasp in wonder at an old-growth forest of sequoias or sugar pines, walk through an unsullied national park, or watch a hawk circle unmolested in the autumn sky. This biography is a tribute, long overdue, to a warrior for nature.”

If you are at all interested in the early days of the conservation movement in America or if you like to read about inspiring conservation heroes who helped change America for the better, I strongly recommend this book. Rosalie Edge is an inspiring example of what one concerned person can do.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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

(chick 9.5 weeks old)

We have a number of items to share in this update of our web log. But first we wanted to officially document the fact that our chick — Braveheart — took her first flight on Saturday August 1. I happened to be at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge for volunteer training that day, and when I saw she was gone from the nest, I quickly popped in a tape in our VCR and captured a video clip of what might have been her second or third flight. Left click on the WMV video link below to play or right-click and choose “Save Link As” to download the video to your computer.

7 MB

Landing is frequently the hardest part of flying for young raptors, but as you can see in this video, Braveheart does a nice job of landing — and she wisely aims for the middle of the nest, which is the easiest place to land.

While I was at the Refuge during the weekend, I also snapped this photo of our beautiful Blackwater River. This is where Braveheart and her parents will look for their meals, and as you can see it’s a beautiful area at this time of year, although a bit heavy with marsh bugs. Braveheart is lucky in that she has such wonderful habitat in which to learn the ways of the world.

And just a side note: While I was on our Observation Point off the Wildlife Drive, I happened to see an immature bald eagle in a tree near a Bald Eagle Information kiosk. The young eagle seemed at ease even with a couple cars near it, and he was watching the water carefully for his next meal.

Migration and the Female Adult

We’re going to talk about migration more in our next web log entry, but I did want to bring up the topic now since migration will affect our female adult first. Female adult ospreys leave for migration before the males and the chicks, and although it appears that our female is still at the nest and still feeding Braveheart, sometime in late August we would expect her to be gone, heading south before the rest of the family. Once she is gone, the male will then remain to keep an eye on Braveheart while she improves her fishing skills. Then once Braveheart leaves, the male will go as well. We’ll talk more about where they’ll go in a future post.

Osprey Platforms

We recently heard from a friend we have at Tri-State Bird Rescue about an incident where a poorly constructed osprey platform resulted in the young falling into the water beneath the nest. We just wanted to remind folks that if you decide to build an osprey platform, remember that the quality of your construction might determine whether the young chicks survive to fledge. In the past, we’ve posted links to osprey platform construction guidelines, but we’ll share them again here:

Citizens United to Protect Maurice River
Ospreys.com
Building Nesting Platforms for Ospreys - Ontario Landowner Resource Centre PDF file (215KB)

Also, if you live in the Chesapeake Bay area and aren’t sure about building your own platform, contact Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage about their fee-based platform installation services.

Kim Taylor Photos

We have two new photos to share from our photographer friend Kim Taylor, who follows a nest on the Potomac River in nearby Virginia. The nest Kim follows has three chicks that have now fledged, and while observing the youngsters, she captured this amazing composite shot of one of the young cleaning its talons by dipping them in the water and then cooling itself by dipping its chest in as well. You can see more of Kim’s photos at her Flickr gallery.

In addition to her own nest shots, Kim also sent a photo she took at Blackwater Refuge showing our own Osprey Cam platform with our family. In this photo, Braveheart is on the nest, the mother is flying off, and the father is perching on the camera arm. Much thanks to Kim for these wonderful photos!

Osprey Report from Annapolis

Finally we have a special treat from our friends John and Caroline in Annapolis, who have been following a nest near their home along the South River. The nest witnessed high drama this season when the male adult returned to his family with fishing line and a lead sinker stuck on his body. As our cam watchers know, this is a very dangerous situation that can lead to the loss of the adult and also possibly the loss of any of the chicks that get entangled in the line. John kept a detailed osprey log (PDF file - 511KB) of the happenings, and I encourage you to read his excellent account, which includes photos of the action. Much thanks to John for being such an observant witness for nature and sharing this story with us. And for all those reading, be sure to tell your angler friends to retrieve their line! Too often these days we’re hearing about ospreys getting caught in discarded fishing line.

Until next time,
Lisa - webmaster
Contact

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