Chris Wood from Rutland described what he believes is Maya and Blue 33 (11)’s 2021 fledglings leaving home and starting their own journey. It was so poignant that I thought I would include it in its entirety here today.
For those of you who do not know, Blue 33 (11) and Maya are the resident couple on Rutland Water’s Manton Bay Osprey Nest. They are normally the first to arrive back from migration and often within a half hour of one another. Imagine – 4000 miles and landing that close. Do they spend the winter together? No one seems to know. They are a Super Osprey couple, hatching and fledging 19 chicks as of today. This year the couple had 2 fledglings but they have had nests of four and it has not been a problem for either of them.
A video from a month ago. Maya is not ringed. The two fledglings are. In the image for the video, Blue 33 (11) is on the front left. Maya is looking at the fish and one of the chicks, now a fledgling, is in the back. Blue 33 always made sure that there was a fish on the nest first thing in the morning – right at dawn! Which is why his behaviour Yesterday was so unusual.
Chris Wood says:
“Yesterday at Manton Bay an extra shift proved to be quite eventful very early on. 095 had been very active early on in the morning, we get there for 6am, ok I was late yesterday, 6.45. She was flying around the bay, diving from the camera perch and from the air, skimming across the water as if to wash her feet and as usual plenty of food begging. But 33 wasn’t present, in fact we didn’t see him until midday, had he planned this? Around 9.10am, ten minutes into the extra shift 095 suddenly took to the air and started to fly across the bay, she started circling, round and round, gaining height slowly and gradually she passed over Waderscrape hide continuing on over the trees to the rear of the hide until we could see her no more, was she gone? Only 3 minutes later, 096, who had been sat on the far left perch all the time suddenly took flight and headed very purposely across the bay. He too headed towards the hide circling to the right and headed on past over the trees, he was gone. Had he seen his sister in the distance circling higher and higher heading away, south from the bay. Was he following, had they both left or was it just coincidence. Had 33 stayed away yesterday morning to encourage the youngsters to leave? All in all it was a spectacular sight if they had left, one tinged with sadness another with how fantastic to see two young Ospreys make it to migration and start the biggest adventure of their short lives, another great success for the Manton bay pair of Maya and 33(11).” Another person watching this, added, “Just before 095 left she also flew across to 096 on his perch – chipping at him – and Maya took to the air for the first time that morning as they left and circled upwards as if watching events.”
Oh, I wish those two had satellite transmitters.
Blue 33 is already doing some bonding with Maya before she leaves now that the kids are gone.
There has been no one home on the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest of Tiny Little at the times when the kiddos would normally have been there screaming for food.
Does this mean that they caught that same wind that draws our juveniles to start their own independent lives?
Someone who is home is Kindness, the fledgling Bald Eagle at the Glacier Bay Park in Juneau, Alaska. Kindness fledged on 21 August. Since then she has been enjoying short trips around her beautiful natal tree. So far she has slept on the nest but soon she will move to roosting on a branch.
Where Kindness is standing is called the ‘Bouncy Branch’. Oh, she looks so tiny next to those huge Pine Siskin Trees!
Kindness bounces and flies.
Liberty and Freedom always lure her back with a meal! And it works – Kindness has learned that if you leave food someone else will eat it. She is normally back on the nest within 3-5 minutes of a delivery.
This is precisely how fledging should go. Remember that and if you watched E17 and E18, Harriet and M15’s two fledglings from 2020 – that is a perfect example of a normal raptor fledge, the fledglings flying and playing with parents providing food.
When I last checked, the female peregrine falcon on the Collins Street nest was sure bulking up like she was going to lay that second egg today. Let me check!
Mom needed a break. Still only one egg at 4am 24 August. Sometime on the 24th for sure.
Another Australian bird, the Galah. Here is a very short video of an exchange between this fabulous pink and grey bird and some kangaroos. Try cutting and pasting. So cute! We need cute today. It is from the Kangaroo Sanctuary at Alice Springs.
Today there were some visitors to the garden in addition to the hundreds of various sparrows. The rain is coming down and it seems that they prefer the cylinder suet – fantastic. Even with domes the bird seed seems to still get wet. What a mess. Rain doesn’t stop the birds and squirrels from being hungry! The light was terrible and my laptop didn’t want to recognize the new card in the camera so I am attaching these even tho they are not the best images.
The image below is ‘Little Red” who has a life-lease for the garden shed penthouse.
Merlin identifies the bird image below as a Juvenile Male Ruby-throated hummingbird. If this is the case, the hummers are moving south on their way to winter vacations.
One of the resident Blue Jays who would love Little Red to get off the suet — or for me to go out and hang a new cylinder up in another place. He looks like he is doing a little moulting.
There is no word on Malin. Again, ‘no news is good news’. I am practicing patience or at least pretending that I am trying! We are all anxious for Malin and the youngsters of Grafs and Jan. Yesterday Grafs was in once and Jan twice. Better than nothing! And those storklings are starting to fledge. That feels like a miracle. I hope that they find the feeders.
I hope to have news soon on Malin. I am guessing that there are difficulties with the identification of the two birds – maybe neither is Malin. We wait.
Thank you for joining me today. Take care everyone, see you soon.
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen shots or found photographs: The Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs, Glacier Gardens Park in Juneau, Alaska, The Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest, Chris Wood and the Rutland Osprey Project FB Page, and the Collins Street Falcon Cam by Mirvac.