3 April 2024
Good Morning Everyone,
There is an update to Tuesday’s posting. Correction: Liberty and Guardian’s first clutch. One egg broken. I inadvertently said second clutch! Regrets for any confusion.
I wished for rain and got a mix of rain and snow on Tuesday. It was a grey, cold, miserable day. This did not stop the birds and squirrels from working away in the garden. Indeed, their frantic eating and collection of nuts made me think that the forecast was wrong and that a big storm was coming.
Baby Hope and Hugo Yugo have asked that you do the birds and squirrels a favour. Either do not purchase suet in those mesh bags that get the little legs tangled up, OR if you do, remove the mesh bag – and cut it up completely – for safe disposal. Don’t think throwing it in the bin will make it secure. These bags wind up in landfills, blow around, and birds and raptors go there to find food. So please, help us keep everyone safe.
The female Downy Woodpecker is eating from a suet cylinder removed from a mesh bag.
Checking for the pick of the peanuts! They find the heaviest peanut, knowing that if it is light, there is either nothing in there, or it is dried up.
There were four Little Reds running around today with the three Grey Squirrels. Everyone wanted peanuts!
If you wish to thank or donate to help with the maintenance and repairs and predator baffle for the Achieva Credit Union Osprey nest of Jack and Diane, please go to the Raptor Centre of Tampa Bay (Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue, Moccasin Lake Raptor Sanctuary) and thank Barbara Walker. Donations are always appreciated, although they did not ask for help- showing them people care for this Osprey couple would be good. Any amount, however small, is always appreciated, but a big thank you would be appreciated as well.
Duke Farms is a beautiful nest to behold even in the rain on Tuesday. The pictures tell the entire story.
The peace on the Duke Farms nest is fantastic. Now the unsettled nest is Moorings Park.
At Moorings Park Osprey platform, it is another story. They are just starting the Reptilian Phase. Ruffy is terrorising Tuffie. It is a repeat of what we saw at Duke Farms. Now what is the problem with Harry getting fish to the nest early in the day? We praised him last year for his fishing skills. So what is up? We know from Mark Smith’s videos that ospreys have many species that would like to take a free fish – eagles, gulls, and other ospreys!
A nice-sized fish finally came on the nest around 1000. This was the first meal of the day for these two. Ospreys (like eaglets) need consistent fish deliveries. Regular deliveries mean food security – ospreys are very sensitive to any change in delivery patterns. Harry used to be good at having a fish on the nest first thing in the morning. The delay can cause the eldest to believe there is a food shortage even if there is not. This results in the younger sibling getting battered.
Ruffy will continually keep Tuffie away from the feeding despite the size of the fish being ample to feed Mum and both osplets. She will even stop eating and go and throttle Tuffie to make sure it doesn’t get up and want food.
The key is going to be Tuffie’s response. Tired, hot, and hungry – getting dehydrated from not having food for some time. That might keep Tuffie away from Ruffy and Mum’s beak. The beaking is meant as intimidation. Whether you call it bonking, beaking, clouting, or bullying – the action is the same and the intention is the same – to frighten the wits out of the younger sibling so they do not eat.
Mum feeds the tail of the fish at 11:51 – this is the third feeding of the day – and Tuffie will not get a single flake. Tuffie is hot and is panting through its mouth. The little osplet needs the hydration that it gets from the fish.
Dad brought a big headless fish at 1523 and Ruffy began attacking Tuffie immediately. Remember. Ruffy has already had three meals! Tuffie has had nothing.
Another partial fish comes at 1754.
Ruffy gets fed. Around 1800 Tuffie gets some fish! The little osplet has gone all day without food in the hot Florida sun. What a relief that third egg did not hatch! Harry needs to pile the fish on this nest and he needs to get one up there right as the sun rises.
Tuffie did not fill its crop. The little one needed to as it had a difficult Monday as well. Ruffy began attacking after the meal. This nest is unstable right now. Two other fish before sunset would be great as Mum Sally has to eat as well.
If serious fighting occurs due to perceived food shortages, we often see it at this milestone – the change from the soft down to the Reptile stage. It can cease in a few days or, as we have seen in other cases, one of the ospreys can die.
In 2023, out of the 173 osprey eggs and chicks followed in the US, ten of those died directly from siblicide. Siblicide is not ‘play fighting’. It is a well documented strategy to reduce the osplets on the nest by the eldest (normally).
To quote Dr Tim Mackrill, Director of the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, “The dominance of older siblings in food-deprived nests invariably means that the youngest chick does not survive. In their New Jersey study, Steidl and Griffin (1991) found that brood reduction (the loss of at least one nestling) was recorded in 36 percent o broods of three and in 23 percent of broods of two, and these losses typically occurred as the chicks began to grow at the fastest rate, two to three weeks after hatching.” (112)
Our 2023 study at the International Osprey Data Project, the loss was 17.3% from siblicide.
Sally could take a lesson from Thunder at the West End Bald Eagle nest. If you recall, when the two older eaglets starting bonking one another when it was feeding time, Thunder just sat on them. Every time they beaked, she sat. And then, surprise. They stopped because they were hungry. Three very civilised eaglets – for the second time for Thunder and Akecheta.
Cruz and Andor’s first hatch at Fraser Point.
The egg bowl is really deep!
At Big Bear, Jackie has taken a break. The question now is when will Jackie and Shadow realise that their dream of three eaglets is not to be for this year? And move on looking forward to another try in 2025.
The third hatch at Little Miami Conservancy is already trying out some big kid bites.
Rain has started at the Little Miami nest.
A miserable day for a hatch at ND-LEEF. It looked like we were going to have another eaglet die due to a crushed egg but ND18 has hatched. The time was around 1008.
At the WRDC nest of Ron and Rose, fledgling R6 returns to the nest for the first time on Tuesday morning since he set off on his adventure on Saturday afternoon.
Swampy and Meadow are growing too fast. We yelled at Swampy for beaking Meadow and now we just want these two buddies to stay on the nest at Eagle Country.
What a beautiful image. Mum and Dad having a beaky kiss while JBS20 has a bedtime snack.
Maggie the Screech Owl has 5 baby owlets.
https://hdontap.com/stream/895571
At Carova Beach, Frederick and Betsy are really working on their nest!
Decorah, Iowa, has the same miserable weather that we have in Winnipeg. Poor Mother Goose. There are six eggs, but there is also a mystery. There are three scenarios possible. The original six eggs of Mother Goose are on the nest, and not one of them went overboard when the Intruder came. The second case is that the intruder laid her own egg in the nest, replacing the one lost! The third is that one of Mother Goose’s eggs went overboard but she laid another while the intruder was there. Who knows. What we do know is that there are six eggs.
One of the individuals helping me with my osprey nest observations has several nests near her house. She tells me that in 2021, one of the ospreys “laid two eggs, three days apart, in nests of two other pairs.” Sort of like the Cuckoos.
Oh, gosh. Mrs Decorah North is keeping those two little eaglets warm and dry in incredible conditions. Let us hope that warm weather dries that nest out!
The snow has melted at Denton Homes Eagle nest, home of the Majestics.
Port Tobacco’s only eaglet is nicely spoiled.
White-tail Eagle Milda’s new mate is Hugo! You can imagine how thrilled Hugo Yugo is that this male eagle was named after her. (Just kidding)
Were you worried about Monty and Hartley’s egg the other day? ‘AE’ has sent us the following response from one of the nest moderators:
“As you may know by now hard incubation began on March 29 and things have progressed rather smoothly since then. There have been times some kakking occurred to warn a potential unwelcome visitor away but there was a little incident earlier this morning. Monty had given Hartley a break for awhile early on but they had done a nest exchange again with Monty in hunting mode. One picture is of him on the roof watching for a potential meal. While he was on the hunt he landed on the nest ledge corner a couple of times and on the last one he was followed in by another bird. This was at 8:57am. For those that like to do a review of the events Hartley was taking a snooze with head tucked when Monty arrives on the west ledge corner. (all with the nest box view). In the background you can see the other bird come flying from the west and seems to have followed Monty close to the ledge area. Of course he takes off after it as does Hartley. Monty would come back to the eggs but was drawn off again so I assume it was taking both of them to deter the interloper. Being uncovered as they were during this time is not a concern. Eggs are very resilient and withstand much more than some moments alone.
By the time noon came around I did find Hartley again preening in the shade over the Mayors office roof. At 12:20pm there was a nest exchange when Hartley showed up the ledge & hops down to the box to take over. Monty seems to take his incubation duty very seriously as he seemed reluctant to let her take over.Spring semester is beginning for our student camops so they will soon begin again to cover cam duty per their scheduled time. I welcome their dedication to these birds as they incubate and look forward to hatch at the end of April.
—
Paula A.
Forum Moderator“
Songbirds are returning – everywhere.
I want to draw your attention to the new website for Osprey Watch. Some may believe that there are too many osprey researchers already and far too many ospreys. Do not believe this for a second. The almost entire population of the US Atlantic chicks was wiped out in June of 2023. There is no end in sight regarding the overfishing of the Menhaden. What storms will come this year? Elsewhere in the world, people are trying desperately to build up the osprey population. A big applause has to go to Janet, Fran, and Bazz in South Australia for their work. Please go over and check out the new OspreyWatch website and see if you can help! Scientists, researchers, and citizen scientists are all much needed!
Thank you for being with me today. Please take care…lots more arrivals and ospreys working at their nests. I am having a ‘fun-filled’ time trying to keep up with my data entry forms. See you soon!
Thank you to the following for their notes, posts, videos, photographs, screen captures, articles, and streaming cams that helped me to write my post today: ‘A, AE, Geemeff, J, MA, VV’, Achieva Credit Union, Duke Farms, Moorings Park Ospreys, IWS/Explore.org, Little Miami Conservancy, JB Sands Wetlands, Beverly Davis, Raptor Resource Project/Explore, ND-LEEF, Lloyd Brown and the WRDC, Eagle Country, HDonTap, Denton Homes, Port Tobacco, OBX Osprey Cam, Latvian Fund for Nature, Osprey Watch, Paula at San Jose City Hall Falcon Cam, and The Guardian.
