25 July 2024
Hello Everyone!
Update: You will now know that the cameras in Montana are down due to hurricane force winds. We are grateful that our friend EJ is there, right near Iris. ‘EJ’ reports that a massive storm went through Missoula, Montana Wednesday night. She went to check on Iris and the chicks Thursday morning and they are fine! This is such a great relief.
Kova has fledged at the Surrey Reserve. Only eaglet left is Blue at Boundary Bay for the Hancock Wildlife nests in British Columbia, Canada. Thanks, ‘J’.
Wednesday was a little hotter. 27 C. Today’s excursion was to Delta Beach to check on the Bald Eagles. The humidity and heat were overwhelming from the moment I got to the wetlands. The staff had cut narrow paths through the tall reeds – they didn’t allow any breeze to filter through. There were NO Red-wing Blackbirds doing murmurations. None. The Bald Eagle nest was vacant. I felt bad that I had not gone to check earlier. And then there was a juvenile sitting on a branch overlooking the southern tip of the lake. I bet it was waiting for a parent to return with a big fish! There were gulls and Killdeer along the shore. Stilt Sandpipers, Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, and Semipalmated Plovers danced among the sand and the water. It was a delight. Frogs jumped around the pond while ducks flew off. I could hear Sora. Robins were pulling worms off the grass. Hot, humid – and positively invigorating.
I will post images, other than this frog taken with my phone, when I can find the cable to hook the big camera up to the computer. Oh, the joys of returning from a brief holiday and not being organised.
One of the routines when going to Delta Marsh is to stop for lunch at a small town Chinese restaurant. The owners are the happiest most delightful people. Their food is really good, too. She told me that ‘Canada is the best!’. They were in Las Vegas last week and it was 54 degrees C. She couldn’t wait to get home. This is the heat that is impacting our birds and all wildlife. In Phoenix, they are cooling the animals down with ice and snow surprises.
From kindness to – what? This is the most disgusting article I have read in several months. I have a problem with influencers in the first place having watched young girls at university try to emulate the Kardashians. Now TikTok is getting people to shoot millions of birds over Lebanon!!!!!!!
If you missed the on line chat about Annie and Archie’s fledgling, Nox, here it is! Thank you, Sean and Lynne!
My inbox is full of good news stories. Thank you to everyone who sought the positive and sent it to share!
An Osprey Story:
GAULEY BRIDGE, W.Va. — Sometimes, it takes a village to save an osprey chick.
When Beckley nature photographer Kim Ayers stopped in Gauley Bridge on June 7 to photograph the occupants of a long-established osprey nest built atop a train trestle over the Gauley River, she quickly realized something was amiss.
“I could see an adult osprey in the nest that wasn’t moving, except for a wing, which was blowing in the wind, and I could hear the babies — they were so vocal. I knew right then something wasn’t right.”
Ayers had been visiting the nest for years to check on the progress of the ospreys who made it their home and photograph their activities. She visited the nest once every few weeks since March, when newly-hatched chicks had first been spotted at the site.
During Ayers’ June 7 visit, it was apparent that the adult female was dead, and her two offspring needed food and protection.
“I wanted to just stop and cry,” she said. Instead, Ayers called Three Rivers Avian Center at Brooks in Summers County and asked for help.
“If not for Wendy and Ron Perrone (who operate the avian center), what would we do when something like this happens?” Ayers said. “I’m so thankful they’re here.”
“When we got the call, we knew we couldn’t make it there by dark, so we started working the phones to find a volunteer who was closer,” Wendy Perrone said.
The Perrones soon made contact with Matt Carpenter of Fayetteville, a teacher and experienced climber, who offered to ascend the trestle’s rusty steel beams to reach the nest, secure the young birds in bags, and retrieve the remains of the mother osprey, which had apparently been dead for several days.
Carpenter was accompanied to the scene by his partner, wildlife biologist Lindsay Hermanns, and friend Amber Jaxson, who transported the two young osprey in the back of a Mazda to Beckley to meet the Perrones, who brought the birds back to the avian center.
“They heard the call and volunteered,” Wendy Perrone said of Carpenter, Hermanns and Jaxson.
In the weeks that followed, the two young birds feasted on hand-fed culled trout donated by the Division of Natural Resources’ Tate Lohr Fish Hatchery in Oakvale, Mercer County. After maturing enough to eat on their own, they were moved into the Leon Wilson Flyway in the avian center’s flight barn to learn aeronautical skills.
Unfortunately, one of the chicks turned out to be not as strong or resilient as its sibling, and died in early July. The remaining juvenile thrived in its new surroundings, and on Thursday, was ready to return to Gauley Bridge to be released in the wild.
As a carrier containing the bird was carried to the release site, a short distance from trestle and nest, an adult osprey, likely its father, could be seen winging over the scene, vocalizing as it soared.
“That’s icing on the cake,” Wendy Perrone said. “It means an adult is still around to show the young bird how to hunt.”
When the carrier containing the young osprey was opened, the bird at first seemed reluctant to venture outside. But after Wendy Perrone held the bird on her arm, it began tentatively flapping its wings, then slowly became airborne, flying immediately to the top of the nearby trestle, a few feet from its stick-built nest.
“This is such a relief,” Wendy Perrone sighed, as she watched the bird taking in the view of the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers, also the birthplace of the Kanawha, from its lofty vista. “It’s a good day.”
Ospreys, also known as fish hawks or sea hawks, live along rivers, lakes and coastlines, and can be found in every continent but Antarctica. The birds of prey are smaller than eagles but larger than red-tailed hawks.
When on the hunt, ospreys “are a picture of concentration, diving with feet outstretched and yellow eyes sighting straight along their talons” to catch fish, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “All About Birds” website.
While nesting ospreys can now be found along the length of the Kanawha River, as well as West Virginia’s share of the Ohio River shoreline and large reservoirs like Stonewall Jackson Lake, such was not always the case.
No nesting pairs were known to exist in the state as recently as 1981, according to a survey by the Raptor Research Foundation, following decades of unchecked stream pollution and widespread use of the insecticide DDT.
Industrial and agricultural stream pollution caused steep declines in fish populations, creating a hardship for osprey whose primary source of food is fish. DDT entering the ospreys’ food chain and being absorbed in their tissue caused their egg shells to thin and break before incubation was complete.
A nationwide ban on DDT use and passage of the Clean Water Act both took place in 1972, which gradually helped restore habitat and improve reproduction odds for ospreys in the years that followed.
By the end of the 1980s, an osprey restoration effort got underway in West Virginia, starting at Tygart Lake, involving six-week-old chicks transported from sites in the Chesapeake Bay area and other locales where osprey were relatively abundant. The young ospreys were taken to sites near Tygart Lake’s shoreline where they were fed and sheltered in screened boxes and allowed to acclimate to their new surroundings, before being released when they had matured enough to be able to fly.
A similar project took place from 1989 to 1995, involving the release of 62 juvenile ospreys from a remote site on Blennerhassett Island in the Ohio River in Wood County, involving volunteers from DuPont’s Washington Works plant, in cooperation with the Division of Natural Resources.
By 1994, three nesting pairs of osprey — all products of the reintroduction effort — had been documented in the state. The population has steadily grown since then.
An investigation is underway by the state Division of Natural Resources Police to determine the cause of death of the newly-released osprey’s mother.
‘J’ sent us the update on Challenger, the celebrity Bald Eagle at the Amerian Eagle Foundation who had cataract surgery:
Geemeff’s daily summary for Loch Arkaig and The Woodland Trust:
Daily summary Wednesday 24th July 2024
Today was a quiet day with time for reflection after the sad news received yesterday. The consensus among forum members is that Woodland Trust Scotland, Roy Dennis Foundation, Fundación Migres and the specialist veterinary team all did their utmost to give 1JR a fighting chance, but his health was just too compromised to survive. In domestic news, neither Louis nor Dorcha came into nest cam view today, only Garry LV0 turned up for a few minutes on Nest One which was visited later by a few little birds, some of whom are possibly living underneath the nest. The forecasted rain has turned up and a wet night is ahead, with a strong possibility of thundery showers tomorrow.
Night cam switches on (day cam): Nest One 23.12.20 (03.53.19); Nest Two 22.49.19 (04.14.03)
Today’s videos:
https://youtu.be/5z5M0SPFXu4 N1 Garry arrives with a stick 08.40.50
https://youtu.be/mZHjWrUX0kQ N1 Various little birds flit around 18.38.14
Watch the Loch Arkaig Osprey livestream 24/7 and join in the conversation here:
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/osprey-cam
Bonus podcast marking the 70th anniversary of the return of breeding Ospreys to the UK at Loch Garten:
Scotland Outdoors – Operation Osprey – 70 Years of Breeding Osprey in Scotland – BBC Sounds
At McEuen Park, ‘PB’ caught the only surviving chick of the four self-feeding. Oh, send good wishes to Single Mum and Babe. We need them to make it through this dire time.
The Middle Chick, 6M7, at Glaslyn fledged on Wednesday the 24th at 0840! She picked a wet morning to to take that first flight. Then she was followed by 6M9 at 1027 – congratulations. Aran and Elen have all their babies flying.
These older osplets are really wanting to fly! Just wait – they will take off at the same time! Just wait.
CJ7 and Blue 022 are making doubly sure that their four fledglings continue to eat well! What an amazing year for Poole Harbour. Congratulations.
Wonder where Seren, Dylan, and the chicks are roosting? It is really windy and wee bit damp at Llyn Clywedog.
Gosh, golly. It sounds like gale force winds at Llyn Brenig in the night. The day wasn’t too bad. Waiting for fledge.
Looks a little lonely at the nest of Idris and Telyn at Dyfi. The cam operator caught someone down by the river!
Only Bob was telling Dad, Blue 33, to get the fishing gear out and get that catch on the Manton Bay nest!
The day was gorgeous at Loch Arkaig nest 2 but then the winds and rain began later in the night.
We will have to wait and see what transpires at Loch of the Lowes now that our dear Laddie LM12 is no longer with us. Will Blue NC0 keep the nest with the new dark male?
Three fish delivered to Alyth on Wednesday. Way to go Harry!
Cowlitz PUD – The only surviving chick did fledge on Tuesday and has been returning to the nest regularly. This is fabulous news. If every one of the nests that have had troubles can fledge one chick – that really is a victory in such a challenging year.
I don’t know about anyone else, but if asked to name one outstanding, devoted, more than dedicated, self-sacrificing Osprey female for 2024 in the US, it would have to be our Queen, Iris. Believed to be the oldest osprey in the world, she took a new mate and is raising two chicks in the most extreme heat circumstances after having her summers off since the last chick of hers fledged in 2018, Le’le.
It is the same at the other Montana nests. Fish are not as plentiful as they were ten days ago and the males are working hard to get one or two into the females and chick/s before the heat sets in.
Swoop, Winnie, and chick at Dunrovin. Oh, yes, the chick’s name is Junebug. Cute!
Gosh, the fish look small at Charlo Montana compared to what is coming on the nest at Hellgate.
Keke and River waiting for Keo to get some fish on the nest at Sandpoint on Wednesday.
Only Bob at Bridge Golf Course returned to the nest ten hours after fledging. Thanks ‘H’ for catching that landing – looks like the kid needs some more practice!
‘H’ reports:
7/24 Patuxent River Park osprey nest: The live stream was down for five days, and resumed this morning. Fortunately before the cam had gone down, we had been able to witness Little fledge and return to the nest on 7/18. And, it was also awesome to watch him battle for a fish on the nest that day with his siblings, and come away victorious! We missed being able to observe all the post-fledge action while the cam was down. Big was in the nest when the live stream resumed. At around noon, Dad brought a fish to Big. Earlier, a visiting fledgling had been repelled by Big, but the juvenile returned while Big was eating her fish. The young visitor looked hungry, and seemed to be waiting for Big to leave some leftovers. Haha, boy were we wrong. At 1421 the juvie suddenly flew from the nest, and returned two minutes later with a very large headless fish. This young osprey was a lot more capable than we had thought, and had apparently taken a fish from another osprey eating close by. At 1534 an intruder adult osprey began to buzz and dive-bomb the visitor while he was eating his fish, twice striking him and knocking him over. As the intruder approached the visiting juvie for the fourth time, the juvie quickly left the nest and we did not see him again. The intruder landed in the nest, grabbed the fish, and after several minutes, it left with the fish. At 1557 Dad dropped off another partial fish and Big grabbed that one. Middle arrived at the nest at 1609, and took the large fish tail leftover from Big’s first fish. Over the next several hours, there was some good old fashioned sibling interactions, with Middle stealing the fish from Big and Big eventually stealing it back. Middle left the nest before nightfall, but Big stayed to protect her fish. Much to our dismay, we did not see Little today.
7/24 Colonial Beach osprey nest: There were no fish brought to the nest today to feed 30-day-old Cobey, but Cobey did eat pretty well yesterday. David was not seen on cam at all. Betty left the nest for some extended periods of time, and she returned with a crop and was feaking her beak. We are hoping for an early breakfish for Cobey in the morning.
7/24 Osoyoos osprey nest: The live stream was offline all day until 1824. We immediately saw Middle mantling and eating, with Big hovering over Middle a bit. So, Middle had apparently won a battle for a fish. Very good. At 1832 Olsen dropped off a partial fish for Big, that she ate for 38 minutes, leaving the fish tail behind. Middle finished eating his fish by 1857, and at 1914 he ate Big’s leftover fish tail. There was a strong breeze in the evening, and Big was doing some wingercizing and managed to lift off the nest several inches.
Thanks, ‘H’!
Kristel had one large prey delivery today at the Estonian nest #2.
There has been another miracle besides Iris and Poole Harbour – and that has been the ‘Hopeless’ nest in Newfoundland. The Sow Lane nest of Beaumont and Hope is one of Hope – not hopelessness this year. Hope is feeding her chicks, Beaumont is providing nice fish, and if we hold our breath and send the most positive energy that nothing untoward happens, this nest could have two fledges this year. That would be the best gift!!!!!! A miracle. These two osplets who are getting their soft juvenile feathers have no idea how speial they are.
Fledge for Richmond and Rosie. ‘Pax’ fledged from the new Golden Gate Audubon nest in San Francisco on Wednesday!
In Nova Scotia, the chicks are preparing to fledge. Skylor and Heidi from the Russell Lake nest are looking to the skies. Skylor looks to go first.
‘NP’ caught this great post of the osplet at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum spreading its wings! Isn’t this amazing? This baby wants to fly.
Thank you for being with me today. Please take care of yourself. We hope to see you soon!
Thank you to the following for their notes, posts, photographs, articles, and streaming cams that helped me to write my post today: ‘EJ, Geemeff, H, J, PB’, The Guardian, Cal Falcons, J + unknown source, American Eagle Foundation, Geemeff and The Woodland Trust, McEuen Park, Bywyd Gwylld Glaslyn, Pam Breci, Pitkin County Open Spaces and Trails, BoPH, Llyn Clywedog, Llyn Brenig, Dyfi Osprey Project, LRWT, The Woodland Trust, Scottish Wildlife Trust (Loch of the Lowes), Loch of the Lowes Visitors Centre, Alyth SSEN, Cowlitz PUD, Montana Osprey Project, Dunrovin Ranch, Charlo Montana, Sandpoint, Bridge Golf Course, Eagle Club of Estonia, Looduskalender, Golden Gate Audubon, Osoyoos, Patuxent River Park, Connie Dennis and Ospreys of Nova Scotia, and Colonial Beach.
