31 May 2023
Good Morning,
Just take a deep breath before reading the blog today…it is a mix of good and bad. We lost a lot of osprey chicks yesterday in the US. It continues to be hot on the Canadian Prairies. Tuesday afternoon the skies darkened and we had a thunderstorm and rain. Everything is perky and green this morning but we are due for more heat today. 29 C not the original 36 predicted, thankfully. The kittens are fine but Lewis must be teething as he has decided to chew up those lovely little connectors one gets with their computers! Is he a puppy and not a kitten? Meanwhile Missey continues to just be ‘sweet’. All of the garden friends are around. The Crows reminded me very loudly that the peanuts had been eaten by Dyson & Co and they wanted more late last night! I hope to get some pictures of all of them today.
Two hatches in the UK that we have been waiting for!
There is that precious little one for Louis and Dorcha. Congratulations. (Hatch at Glaslyn, too – see below)
Geemeff just sent me another image of what could be the Only Bob this year at Loch Arkaig. What a sweetie.
Congratulations to Swoop and Harriet at Dunrovin Ranch on their first hatch. Thanks ‘L’ for sending that news to me! 14:10 on Tuesday the 30th.
I want to be optimistic. The Patchogue nest is so civil compared to some others…the other thing it has going are two parents concentrated on the four nestlings, a big wide nest so that all of the chicks can move around (unlike Patuxent II). A nice fish came in early on Tuesday and Mini got itself turned around and got in line. While it was impossible to see how much fish it ate, there was no aggression and there was fish left over for Mum. Let us hope this continues and Mini will survive in a nest of much larger siblings…it happens!
A nice early fish to start the day off right.
Turn around Mini!
47 degrees F. Mini is cuddling with the older sibs after breakfast.
I continued to check on Mini throughout the day. It is darn difficult to see if this little one gets food but he is still with us and that is a good thing – and he is moving about the nest and appears to have been up at the beak at a late feed.
R5 is back in the WRDC nest of Ron and Rose! And if you are wondering about R4, he was on the camera stand until the truck arrived to return R5. So all is well.
‘H’ reports an equitable and ‘good’ feeding at Patuxent River Park I nest with three osplets. That is fantastic. She has been observing the Patuxent II nest and it would now appear that Mini has been trampled and is probably dead at the bottom of the deep egg cup.
The feeding might be equitable at Patuxent I but it is decidedly not at Severna where, despite Middle getting up under and away from Big early Tuesday, the female opts to feed Big instead of offering bites to both, one to you, and then one to the other. Very frustrating. The adults have yet to move the body of Little Bob – or bury it. Big still attacks Little. Normally the chick would be buried in the nest or removed. In Wales, it has been observed that the adults take the babies at least 300 feet from the nest to dispose of their bodies.
Big was fed the entire fish. Middle had none and has had little food in comparison for a couple of days. Things are not stable. This nest needs more fish and a female willing to feed both chicks. It is not like Middle is not asking! (Mum did not have much either – did I say that Big reminds me of Zoe from PLO?)
At a later feeding, ‘H’ observed the feeding at 1445, “Middle was allowed to eat, then not, then was, then not, etc. No severe bonking (only one bonk) because Middle submits just by Big giving him a certain look. Long story short, Middle had a pretty nice meal, nice crop.” Great news. Observations of a later feed show that Middle wound up with a crop also. In the image of the feeding, notice that Big has Little under it…still obsessed with that dead sibling. Big is 22 days old. Observations from 2022 indicated that most aggression by the first hatch will stop around 18 days on average, if it is going to. By the time the youngest is 28-30 days, generally, they are safe from siblicide but there are exceptions. Port Lincoln in 2022 was one of those.
At the Dyfi Nest of Telyn and Idris, Telyn speed feeds the chicks. There will not be a problem on this nest like we are seeing at those in the US. The big question is: why?
Idris has joined great company – DaiDot and Monty – in bringing in two fish to the nest at the same time.
Elen is a first time Mum and Aran is so well trained by Mrs G. This is going to be a fantastic nest to watch. Their first hatch came in the wee hours of May 31. Congratulations Glaslyn!
As anticipated, the youngest osplet at the Western Maryland Shores Old Town Osprey nest died either late on the 29th or early on the 30th. Parental neglect/siblicide.
The youngest at Carthage TN died as well. The wee one had seizures before it passed which is very typical of osplets. The cause of death is not clear. The chick was six days old. Kathryn gave me the bad news and ‘H’ followed up with a review of fish deliveries. Here they are “After the 1008 fish, Dad arrived to nest 1137, 1156, 1257 without fish. Fish arrived 1444, Mom was starving. Baby was fed, but view was blocked. 5 1/2 hours between fish.” Oldest chick is being monitored.
Three days ago when things were good.
Two fish came on the Achieva nest rather quickly after 0916:35. Middle was the only one at home…Mum got fish, too.
The two osplets at Oyster Bay look good.
Nice big fish come on the Forsythe Nest with its four osplets. The feedings appear to be civil. ‘H’ reports on two for Tuesday morning: “0856 Mini was stuck in the back of the pack, never got a single bite. No aggression whatsoever. 1005 Luck of the draw, Mini was front and centre, received many bites, nice little crop, food coma. No aggression whatsoever.” ‘H’ reported that Mini also ate well being up front at 1644. It is the same with Patchogue. If Mini can get up front, it gets fed, and there are no problems. It is hard to be tiny! Send positive wishes.
Fish left for parents to eat but Big is going after Mini.
Outerbanks 24/7 is doing well. There are three chicks. They just finished lunch and Dad flew in with another little fish. All calm, lined up so civil. Fingers crossed it stays this way.
Do the male Ospreys in the UK take more turns dual feeding with their partners? Blue 022 is feeding one of the chicks while CJ7 feeds the other at Poole Harbour. This is a behaviour observed on many, if not all, of the nests in the UK. How much does this and the size of the fish add to the prevention of siblicide?
Both chicks at the Llyn Clywedog nest of Dylan and Seren are doing well. The oldest on the right is just going into the Reptile phase. Dylan is another male that loves to feed his babies alone or dual with Seren.
Dylan is right in there!
There has been some concern about the Middle chick at Loch of the Lowes. It waited patiently and got fed…like all nests with a Big sibling that wants to push its dominance, Middle is learning that it is best to step back, wait and then get fed. There appears to be intruders…with both Laddie LM12 and Blue NC0 on the nest vocalising.
There are three osplets at Foulshaw Moss in Cumbria. Fingers crossed for Little Bob. It is difficult to tell who gets bites and who doesn’t or if all eat…You can see how small Little Bob is to Big but the feeding looked good for all three. There is five days difference between Big and Little’s hatch dates. May 22 and May 27.
The three osplets at Wolf Bay on the coast of Alabama are three weeks old (two oldest). The nest is doing really well – three healthy osplets! So nice to see.
We are on hatch watch for Richmond and Rosie!
Just look at Angel’s RTH5 today!!!!!!!!
More cuteness overload from the San Jose City Hall falcons…just look at that crop!
But guess what? Monty feeds his chick! These parents are finally getting their act together. Thanks, SK Hideaways.
I don’t always report on them but today there was a posting about Kakapo, the endangered flightless beautiful green parrots from the small NZ islands. The 55 hatches from last season have all lived giving a total population of 248. This is amazing.
A great article on the need for humans to help the Opsreys with their nests!
Please help keep our planet clear of plastic rubbish. It gets on the nest and it gets on the birds and wildlife. This is a very disturbing image….did the photographer try to get help?x
‘R’ sent me an article from The Washington Post. It is a report on research about why Orcas are sinking boats around Gibraltar. This is nothing short of a super interesting read. Both ‘R’ and I wish that other species could communicate with humans so that they could tell us how much we are destroying their environment and lives. The Manatees in Florida are such a good example.
I noticed an article in The Guardian about coffee and it caught my eye. I only buy Birds and Beans and that is because the coffee farmers protect the forest canopy so that the birds can thrive – most companies do not and only coffee certified by the Smithsonian can say they protect the environment in this way. It wasn’t the coffee though but a discussion of climate change and birds. Yellow-throated Toucans are moving further north due to climate change and, in doing so, are endangering the lives of the Quetzals, the most gorgeous indigenous bird. In 1545, according to the article, the first Mayans gifted Philip of Span 2000 Quetzal feathers…the best gift in the world they could imagine. Many families that are not part of big agro are trying to manage the changes – less predictable rain but heavier when it falls, erosion…etc.
And last, please remember to put out a bowl of water for wildlife and birds…this one is a little deep for birds but great for hedgehogs…if you have them in your garden!
Thank you so much for being with me today. See you soon! Take care everyone.
Thank you to the following for their observation notes, the links they have sent me, their Tweets and posts, and the streaming cams that helped to make up my blog today: Geemeff, ‘H’, Kathryn, ‘L’, ‘R’, ‘SP’, Geemeff and Loch Arkaig, Friends of Loch Arkaig, People’s Postcode Lottery and the Woodland Trust, Dunrovin Ranch, PSEG, WRDC, Patuxent River Park, Severna Ospreys, Dyfi Osprey Project, Bwywd Gwyllt Glaslyn, Western Maryland Shores Old Town Osprey, Achieva Credit Union, Oyster Bay Ospreys, Forsyth Ospreys, Outerbanks 24/7, Poole Harbour Ospreys, CarnyXWild, Friends of LOTL and the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Wolf Bay Ospreys, SF Ospreys, Window to Wildlife, SK Hideaways and SJCH Falcons, Sirocco Kakapo, Sunshine Coast News, The Washington Post and The Guardian.
Thank you for the topic of the very cute kitten and Dyson.
Severna’s big is scary. I saw big brandish the deceased Little. I hope the middle doesn’t die like Port Lincoln…. The Tennessee nest is too sad. There are still eggs, very scary. There is something strange about this year. This is just my impression.
Thank you for all the updates.
If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to know, is the first flight of a bird leaving the nest? Or do you leave the nest when you don’t return to the nest completely? Japanese Golden Eagle’s streaming master told me that while the bird is returning to its nest, it is not said that it has left the nest. But the bird’s first flight is called Fledge, right? I am confused. Thank you very much.
Have a wonderful evening!
Hi Akane, I think I can help with the mystery. The first flight is definitely called the fledge. You are 100% correct. It is normal for the raptors to return to their nest after that first flight and be fed for up to a month, sometimes longer. Then they might say that they ‘left the nest’ – forever – not to return. But, we know that the males return to that very nest in about 2-3 years. In the UK, they are having trouble with males that hatched and fledged and went to Africa and came back to try and find a nest and a mate.
Mary Ann, thank you very much for your answer.
I am glad to confirm that Fledge is correct, thank you very much!
The Japanese perception is a bit off. Streaming masters give out wrong information and I sometimes get treated incorrectly as well.
I hope the correct perception will spread soon.
You just keep correcting them!!!!! I don’t think there should be a cultural difference with the wording…the first flight is always the fledge…the problem is if they do not return to the nest. They need to come back like E22 and get strong and fed and fly good…so much worry if they don’t.