Many people who watch Osprey streaming cams or have worked with Ospreys are astonished that Tiny Tot has been able to live on such little food since he had a good feeding at 9pm on the 16th. Yesterday he had some food – not even enough to get me excited. Indeed, when Tiny Tot did a normal ps at 6:39:47 I thought – what the heck?
Today on the Achieva Osprey nest was very interesting and an eye opener into the social behaviour and issues.
All three were a bit soggy when they woke up.
A fish was brought on the nest that kept 1 busy.
Diane came in with a second fish at 9:25:44. Tiny Tot was, as usual, right up there and ready to eat. Diane feeds 1 and 2 and Tiny Tot gets some bites between 9:46:38-9:49:08 and again at 9:49:48. Meanwhile, 1 continues to self feed when it isn’t being fed – and is totally occupied with the fish on the nest. During all of this 2 is going in and out. 2 will get a small piece of fish and walk from Diane to eat it.
Diane is feeding 1 while 2 flaps its wings. 2 has just left the feeding and Tiny is still being careful.
Tiny Tot is still being fed and 1 is looking over to the fish left on the nest. 2 is at the far end of the nest away from Diane. If you look at the images you will see that Diane is happily feeding Tiny Tot and 2 is not threatening Tiny or mom.
1 is occupied with a fish and 2 is looking off the nest. Diane is feeding Tiny Tot the tail end of the 9:25:44 delivery.
At 10:19:30 Diane takes the fish that 1 has been self-feeding from and moves it to the back of the nest and feeds Tiny Tot. 1 goes over at 1:44:56 but Diane continues to feed Tiny Tot for another minute and then feeds the last of the fish to 1.
Tiny Tot is really excited to get a private feeding!
Diane feeds most of the fish that 1 had to Tiny Tot while 1 and 2 are at the other end of the nest.
Tiny Tot has a crop at the end of the feeding. Gosh, he must feel good. There he is on the left.
There has been a lot of chatter on the streaming cam’s chat line. Much of it is frustration or statements. The Wildlife Rehabbers will not intervene in this nest and at this moment in time there seems no need for them to do so. If they were to relocate any of the birds to care, it should be – as all the 60 years of Roy Dennis’s research and relocation efforts have discovered at Rutland Water – the older of the birds. Either 1 or 2 will easily survive in care til fledge. Tiny Tot needs to stay with its mother and be fed.
The other interesting revelation from this morning is that when 2 is out of action, the nest is much calmer. Tiny Tot got to eat today because 2 was, for the most part, occupied with little pieces of fish or watching something going on at the other end of the nest. This played into Tiny Tot’s advantage. By not staying around Diane, she freely felt at east to take the fish from 1 and feed it to Tiny Tot knowing he was hungry.
What we all know is that such a good feed for Tiny will hold it for a couple of days! And also, it appears that Tiny Tot is, on occasion, going over to a very old piece of leatherback fish and pecking away on it. Is that his secret?
Thank you for joining me on this joyous morning. Tiny Tot is a survivor and if that isn’t what is needed for ‘natural selection’, I certainly don’t know what is!
Thank you to Achieva Osprey for their streaming cam where I pulled my screen shots.