There has been a lot of discussion about the industrial fishing of the Chesapeake Bay and the lack of Menhaden for the Ospreys.
The Bay is one of the main areas for ospreys in the United States. There were hundreds of thousands of them. That is a lot of fish required for adults and chicks and the fish are just not there. Can the osprey adapt to eating a different kind of fish? They have certainly adapted over 61 million years, but the problem is – what other fish? Talk to Brian Collins or some of the other fishers from the region and we immediately understand that Striped Bass numbers are down as well along with all other species. Has the industrial overfishing impacted the other regions? Some debate that.
Ben Wurst’s recent newsletter from Conserve Wildlife of NJ indicates the lack of prey is the root cause of nest failure in the area of the Bay. Thanks, Heidi, for this great article.
Heidi, Viki, and I monitored the changing behaviour of osprey in the area. We noted that Duke and Daisy chose not to breed. Viki noted that in 2024, all chicks starved in the fifteen nests they had monitored for twenty years in Maryland. Last year, those same adult osprey laid their eggs and abandoned them before hatching due – I strongly believe – to a lack of food. No sense hatching them if they are going to starve to death. Please don’t tell me our raptors are not intelligent. They are. I continue and will always add what Laura Culley taught me – they are smarter than humans!
The problem is we are killing them and their habitat.
One thing that we cannot ignore is the rising temperature of the oceans, lakes, and streams. This is killing off fish and that will have an immediate impact on seabirds and other raptors that rely on fish as their sole source of food.
So as we move into osprey season, I want us to educate ourselves on some of the major challenges the populations face in different regions of the world.
Thank you for being with me this morning. Take care. Regular blog back the end of the week!
Thank you to Heidi for sending me the article by Ben Wurst. Thank you Ben for writing it and to The Guardian, we are always grateful for your coverage of the environment.
Today, it was -22 degrees C. It was cold. Despite this, Ann braved the cold with Don and Toby to go for their walk along the river.
It’s funny. We know winter is coming when we complain it’s too hot in summer. Still, it takes time to get our heads around the fact that we do need to find all our winter kit. We have coats and boots down to -40 °C. We have scarves and toques. We have ski pants. I have discovered we need a few things because we are finding ourselves outside, walking Toby three times a day, no matter the weather. Today, two out of the three winter wardrobe essentials arrived – Merino wool Long Johns to go layer with those ski pants. They are rated for extreme cold. The next are faux fur-lined bomber hats, complete with flaps. We are just waiting for some much warmer mitts with glove liners. Toby, as you know, is all kitted out with absolutely everything. He doesn’t mind his boots, and those jump suits lined with thermal blanket are pretty amazing. If the ice on the roads would disappear, it would be really nice to go for a long walk through the forest with the chickadees.
We had ‘sun dogs’. This image was taken out of the screened window of the conservatory around 1530. Sunset is an hour later. Sun dogs appear when it is very, very cold on the Canadian Prairies.
So what are sun dogs? Mr Google says, “Sun dogs are bright spots of light that appear on either side of the sun, formed when hexagonal ice crystals refract sunlight in the atmosphere. They are also called parhelia or mock suns, and are most visible when the sun is low on the horizon, like during sunrise or sunset. The ice crystals act like tiny prisms, bending and separating the light into a spectrum of colors, with red on the inside closest to the sun.” There is another one on the other side of the sun that is low on the horizon – too low for me to get an image of the entire scene.
There is a new FB group organised by Cali Condor and a few of their friends. I am putting the link here, and I urge you to step up and join.
I caught Toby and Hugo Yugo again, so here is another of their ‘loving’ videos! I hope these two cutie pies bring you some joy today.
Want to help support ospreys in South Australia? Why not purchase a copy of Fran Solly’s book about Marie!– – Let’s talk Fran into writing a book about Ervie and that clutch! Hint, hint. The story of Ervie and his brothers, Falky and Bazza, is remarkable. There were no fish fairies that year. It was just heart-warming.
Here is the link if you wish to purchase and have the book sent to another country other than Australia:
SK Hideaways caught Liberty and Guardian having a ‘discussion’ over stick placement. Don’t you just wish you could talk ‘eagle’? I bet it sounds something like humans talking about furniture. https://youtu.be/a_YZBv6zTZo?
SW Florida’s M15 and F23 – November 12 was the day the first egg was laid. So today is day 31. The range is 34-38 days.
WRDC nest of Rose and Ron – November 12 was also the day the first egg was laid. So it is also day 31 at the WRDC nest.
Captiva Bald Eagle nest of Clive and Connie – November 16 is the date for the first egg.
This coming week is going to be very busy in terms of pip watches and hatch.
Gabby and Beau’s first egg was laid on November 23 so we have a couple of weeks before we are on pip watch for NE Florida.
The American Bird Conservancy’s Bird of the Week is the Waved Albatross – a new seabird for me. Have a read! These beautiful birds are critically endangered. Like other albatross, there are many ways we can help and changing the nature of long-line industrial fishing is at the heart of it.
Menhaden – Always on my Mind should be a popular song. Wonder what would happen to those osprey nests – the adults and any chicks that hatch – if 112 million tonnes of Menhaden got dumped in The Bay? Check out this meeting!
Wishing you a lovely weekend from our house to yours!
Thank you to Cali Condor, Friends of Osprey South Australia, Port Lincoln Osprey, and SK Hideaways for the content I added to my blog today. I am very grateful for all they do and their love and support for our Raptors. I guess I should also thank Toby, Hugo Yugo, and the American Bird Conservancy, too!
I am so happy that Toby and Hugo Yugo’s little kissing/licking fest touched your hearts. It is really easy to see why they bring such joy to our lives! SP wrote, “Mary Ann, you are my Santa! The Toby-HY love fest… I’ve only watched it three times… so far. xoxo”
Brock reminded me today that it is ‘essential’ to find a way to have water for the outdoor animals that we feed. This is easy if you live in an area where it never gets below freezing. Here, it can be problematic. You MUST be careful so as not to cause the little birds to freeze their feet and feathers. Because of these issues, I am reluctant to use a heater in the bird baths if there is any chance their little feet will stick and be pulled off! Luckily for Brock, there are two dishes in his heated feeding station – one for wet food and the other for water. He had several long drinks today!
The small sparrows and Starlings were busy eating snow. They don’t get as much as they would if there were a bird bath for them, but they do get some hydration, which is really important if you are feeding them.
I hope you did not worry about Gabby being away from her nest and leaving Beau to incubate for approximately 24 hours. This is ‘Gabby’s Way’. Every year, she takes a break before the eggs hatch. The first time I saw this panic set in, I thought she had died, leaving Samson to care for their family, but no. Gabby was having a ‘spa time’ – I liked to call it. Gabby is now home, and Beau was so happy to get off those eggs, he flew off the nest when he caught her flying in!
Beautiful Gabby back in the nest.
I decided to take a sheet out of Gabby’s playbook today while Anne was caring for Don, Toby, and The Girls.
You probably know someone who was or is a caregiver to another individual – their partner, a parent, another family member, or a friend. It is stressful. There is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Caregivers are often ‘tired beyond belief’ and rarely take time for themselves. You might know someone who cared for another person and actually died before them. It happens more often than you might think. As Don’s illness progresses, I am trying hard to make sure that my life is a bit more balanced. So, going back to Gabby…I gave myself a ‘treat’ today. I spent the afternoon at the Dior counter today getting a ‘refresh’ from a wonderful woman who has worked for this French cosmetics company for 35 years. It was fun – and a reminder that each of us needs to create time to relax and laugh!
Moving back to our birds. As you know, Heidi and I have been monitoring osprey nests for mortality numbers and causes. Heidi sent this to me today and I thought that you might be interested, too.
“This was the presentation held yesterday on Virginia Eastern Shore by Dr. Watts and Ben Wurst. The presentation itself is only about 67 minutes long, and is very informative.https://youtu.be/bR8byYABd8s?s
A lot of takeaways. VV’s nests all had abandoned eggs. But, Watts’ data indicated the majority of nest failures were from brood reduction due to a lack of menhaden. Most of the eggs hatched, but most chicks didn’t survive. Interesting.”
Overfishing has led to the death of 60,000 penguins! The Guardian gives us the details. “More sustainable fisheries management could improve the penguins’ chances of survival. Conservationists are taking action on the ground, by building artificial nests to shelter chicks, managing predators and hand-rearing adults and chicks who need rescuing. Commercial purse-seine fishing, which involves encircling a school of fish with a large net and then trapping them by closing the bottom, has been banned around the six largest penguin-breeding colonies in South Africa.
It is hoped this will “increase access to prey for penguins at critical parts of their life cycle”, said the study co-author Dr Azwianewi Makhado, from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment in South Africa.”
I don’t know about you, but my calendar is counting down to the arrival of the ospreys in the UK! Of course, there is a big gold star at the beginning of April to remind me to be on the lookout for Iris’s return to Missoula, Montana.
Lots of couples are incubating. Eagles and Albatross.
You can watch the Royal Albatross Royal Cam Pair, BOK and WYL, in New Zealand. If you are not aware, the letters relate to the coloured identification bands on their legs. BOK (female) is Blue-Orange-Black with ‘K’ being for Black. WYL (male) is White-Yellow-Lime.
Today, the couple were reunited as they switched incubation duties. The note under the video reads: “WYL returns to the Plateau nest site to give his mate BOK a well-earned break from incubation. Watch him enter from the left of the frame to greet her, and after a brief reunion, BOK lifts off and hands over nest duties. Following a few vocal exchanges with the neighbors, she heads back out to sea. Join us live as we follow their journey through the 2025–26 breeding season! RoyalCam was set up in January 2016 by the Department of Conservation and the Cornell Lab has been collaborating with DOC since 2019 to bring the cam to life. To learn more while watching, view the cam at https://www.doc.govt.nz/royalcam“
At Port Lincoln, Dad was on the barge during the early morning hours having a nap. The camera panned to the old barge but no ospreys were visible.
Girri is such a character. She has even been incubating the remaining egg in the scrape on and off!
Just look at those juvenile feathers coming in!
Girri is a BIG girl.
There has been no news of any peregrine falcons from the CBD of Melbourne coming into care. This is great news!
Liberty and Guardian have been at the Redding Eagles nest.
More eagle news on Monday!
Signing off with Hawk Mountain’s migratory count for the week of 3 December. Osprey count way down. Bald Eagles up. Sharp-shinned Hawks down along with many others. My goodness…but a growth in Broad-winged haws.
It isn’t just at Hawk Mountain that some species numbers are beginning to plummet. In the UK, recognizing this horrific act, people are opting to name streets after our amazing birds in order that they not be forgotten.
I don’t need to tell you that Toby and The Girls make my life worth living.
After a day of frolicking in the snow, there is nothing nicer than napping on a toy duck.
Thank you so much for being with us today. We hope to have you with us again tomorrow!
Thank you to Heidi for sending us the link to that presentation on the Ospreys with Dr Watts and to SP for allowing me to quote them. I am also grateful to the owners of the streaming cams – Charles Sturt University, Port Lincoln Osprey, American Eagle Foundation, and NZ Dept of Conservation/Cornell Bird Lab – where I took my screen captures today and to the authors of the articles on providing water for wildlife in winter, The Guardian for covering the death of the African Penguins or OpenVerse for the image of the African Penguins.
