It has been more than twelve hours since the mother of the only surviving chick on the Collins Marsh Nest in Wisconsin was with her chick. It is hot in Wisconsin. The chick is very hungry. The father has made two fish drops but he refuses to feed the chick. This is normal. Many of the males do not feed their chicks while some delight in it. Now anyone who knows the least amount about Ospreys knows that the father brings in the fish. The mother is either on the nest or arrives immediately, takes the fish, and feeds the chicks eating some of the fish herself. A female Osprey does not miss two fish drops unless there is something terribly wrong. She is either severely injured or dead.
You can clearly see the two pieces of fish. This wee one is trying to feed itself. It goes from the old dry fish to the newly brought in one trying to eat.
I was alarmed when the mother did not come to feed this little one who is obviously extremely hungry. Then when I saw the other piece of fish and realized that the parent had not been there to feed the chick earlier – well, my concern for the mother rose.
So there are now concerns over the chick’s welfare, the mother’s well being (she is injured or dead), and recently there is an issue with the chick’s feathers. There is something wrong with some of the primaries. They are either out of alignment or there are other issues.
It is hard to see in this image but there are spaces in between some of the flight feathers. I hope that the problem feathers do not break because if you look underneath you can still see they are blood feathers.
Several chicks have been placed successfully in foster homes in the past week by bander, Patricia Fisher.
If you watch this Osprey nest, then please consider phoning the Department of Natural Resources toll free emergency number. Tell them the mother is not on the nest tonight and has not been there since morning. She missed two fish drops to feed the chick. The chick tried to self-feed. Look at the images I have and if you watched the footage you should also address the issue of the feathers. That number is 1-800-847-9367. I have been told that if they get enough complaints they will have to act.
Of course the other concern is that this chick is open game for the Great Horned Owls who hunt at night or the Bald Eagles during the day. Let us hope that there is action tomorrow.
Thank you for stopping in and thank you for calling the emergency line if you watch this nest and are concerned for the welfare of this chick. Last week the chick that fell into the water at the Patuxent Osprey Nest 2 was saved because of citizen birders!
Sweet baby sleeping alone under a full moon. Let us all hope that the Great Horned Owls are hunting in another direction.
Thank you to the Collins Marsh Reservoir Nature Centre for their camera where I took my screen shots.
More rain has come to the Canadian prairies and that is good. There are wonderful things happening at the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest, too.
Earlier today 462 was eating on the flounder that came in. Tiny Little wants some and she is doing her usual wing flaps and playing with sticks, even pulling on the tail of the live fish to get at it. What a character. The two older siblings have become very tolerant of the ‘little one’ that isn’t so little!
It is Tiny’s usual look towards the tail before getting back there and pulling on it. Gosh, these birds are gorgeous.
Tiny Little has been moving sticks getting back by the tail and pretending to give it an accidental yank once in awhile. Too funny.
Tiny Little takes over from 462 eating the fish. 462 flies off the nest and 464 is quietly waits in the wings.
Tiny Little is really doing a great job of that self-feeding. She has been working on that flounder for quite awhile.
White YW flies in and delivers another flounder to 464 who begins mantling and telling the parent how happy they are.
Of course, 462 sees all the action on the nest and decides to come and check it out. They don’t want to miss anything — especially a parent on the nest to feed them. Yes, even the older ones love to still be fed by mum. But mum is not doing it. This is tough love Osprey style.
Tiny Little will not be distracted! And 464 is holding on to its flounder as best it can. Gosh those heads are hard to open. Wonder if 462 will get this one later?
These kiddos are pretty polite. I am glad that White 35 has stopped rushing in to feed Tiny Little. That might sound cruel but TL needs to become really good at self-feeding to survive. These are terrific parents. 462 has eaten earlier and both TL and 464 along with 462 will have nice full tummies for nite-nite.
Earlier Tiny Little did some great hovering.
After Tiny Little finished all of the flounder she could eat, White 35 flew in quickly and took it to the parent tree. Those adults have to be watching everything these kids do – like a hawk! The removal of the fish inspired Tiny Little to do more great hovering. I thought she was gone! If not, tomorrow. Tiny Little is now inspired to self-feed and fly. The confidence is really growing.
Tiny Little also seemed to enjoy the hovering and looking down – the fear from earlier days seems to have dissipated.
I just checked and 464 is still working on its flounder. Tiny Little is staring 464 down and 462 is simply waiting. These three are so funny. Did I tell you that 462 actually fed Tiny Little some bites earlier she begged so much!? And if I told you twice, laugh twice. That is just a hoot.
No one is rushing 464 anymore. Tiny Little and 462 have decided to become ducklings and wait!
There is a lot of worry about the Collins Marsh Reservoir Osprey Nest in Wisconsin. It is hot there. They are now experiencing some of that relentless heat that hit the Pacific NW a couple of weeks ago and the Canadian Prairies last week. It is close to 45 degrees in the nest. That could easily account for the deaths of the other two chicks. The little one was fed at sometime. I rewound the tape. I could not see the mother protecting that chick from the sun. I really hope that this is not another Electra-Wattsworth scenario! There are some Osprey parents that are ‘the greats’ – Monty and his mates Nora and Glesni, Blue 33 and Maya are up in the super strata. There are others who are normal average and some who, are not good parents. Maybe they came from a nest where food was not brought in regularly. Who knows what is the difference. Some of us believe it is good DNA. The Cowlitz nest is an example of a nest that is not that good. If taking care of your family and fledging chicks who survive migration and return to breed is the measure, Cowlitz fails. Sadly, we cannot expect every nest to be like that of Blue 33 at Rutland. Maya and Blue even fledged a nest of four chicks in 2018. Some of the others can hardly keep up with two. Still. we all want to help if we can.
There have been any number of questions about intervention to save the chick at Collins Marsh. At the present time the archaic laws of the US – those of 1948 – do not allow for interventions unless it is something clearly caused by humans. Think monofilament line in the nest. That said I will go over some interventions this year. In the early spring, the two eaglets of E17 and E18 on Harriet and M15s Bald Eagle Nest got conjunctivitis. There were probably more than a 1000 people who called in about the eaglets and their eyes. Action was taken. CROW retrieved the eaglets with the help of Joshua Tree and they were off the nest for 5 days. They returned well. Conjunctivitis is not caused by humans. At the Captiva Bald Eagle Nest, CROW removed a monofilament line. However, when the two eaglets ate a rat that was brought to the nest that had eaten rodenticide, the youngest died and the oldest lived until they were flapping and jumping and broke a blood feather and bled out on the nest. Help did not come for the eaglets when the first one looked ill. Citizen watchers warned of the rat on the nest but there was nothing happened. It was extremely frustrating. Both of the eaglets died. This was not the fault of CROW. You need action by the bodies that govern the nests. Lately a number of chicks have gone to foster parents which is also an intervention. A chick was rescued that fell into a river. That is an intervention. Laws are applied differently by different people. The laws need to be changed and brought up to date. There should also be laws against lead in hunting and fishing equipment and Minnesota is taking that on. Every state should ban the use of these because that lead is killing the birds or making them severely ill. Every day there are examples on the rehabbers sites. Hawaii just passed a law banning helium balloons because the albatross get entangled in them. Then there is the entire issue of rodenticide – which kills wildlife as well as domestic pets. Research shows that raptors kill more mice and rats than poison. Perhaps the answer is to begin at the State level with copies of appeal letters to the Under Secretary of State for the Department of the Interior.
I checked on Kindness and her dad had fed her and within fifteen minutes he was flying back in with more food for his little girl. It might seem lonely but there are benefits to being an only child on a great nest. Freedom and Liberty are fantastic parents at the Glacier Gardens nest. It is a wonder Kindness did not pop her crop today.
I have really watched Tiny Little closely today and just popped in to the other nests. The only other news I have is that the Albatross is still at the RSPB Bempton Cliffs in the East Riding of Yorkshire as reported by Sally White on the FB page. Maybe that Albatross isn’t lost. Perhaps they know something we don’t!
Thank you so much for joining me. Great progress has been made at the Foulshaw Moss. It is wonderful to see Tiny Little getting some confidence. Our rain has stopped but everything is green! It’s a good day. Take care all.
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screenshots: Collins Marsh Reservoir and Neustadter Nature Center, Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and Foulshaw Moss Osprey Cam, and Glaciers Gardens Bald Eagle cam.
It has been a very strange day. We had a tiny bit of rain during the middle of the night on Monday with lots of thunder and lightning. It was not enough rain to help anything. South of where I live in a town called Morris, Manitoba, the river is practically bone dry. Dead fish is all you see and dirt. Old timers are starting to talk about the days of the Dust Bowl. I think about all the birds that depend on the water and the fish. A follower wrote to me and asked me if I knew anything about the ospreys at a nest in Wisconsin – the Collin Marsh Osprey Nest. It is not a nest that I follow but I did check. Just as ‘S’ had noted, the only chick on the nest looks a bit thin. As it turns out there were originally three relatively healthy chicks. Now there is only one. They are not sure what killed two of them. I am hoping that the Neustadter Nature Centre will be doing a post-mortem. It could well be the heat. A bander in Wisconsin said that they had found many dead chicks in the nests. That is very very sad. In England, many of the nature areas that were closed during the pandemic were taken over by the wildlife only to open and have humans scare birds off their nests and chase animals out of the area along with purposefully setting fires. What in the world is wrong with humans? Sorry. It just seems that you go two steps forward and three backward sometimes. Very frustrating.
As you know, I really admire Ferris Akel. He has a regular tour of the Montezuma Park area, Wildlife Drive, Sapsucker Lake, and the Cornell Campus every Saturday. Ferris has someone editing his videos and they are simply excellent. Today, he posted the Red Tail Hawk highlights from his tour on 16 July. It’s OK to say, ‘Oh, my, aren’t they cute!” Have a look:
The Royal Cam princess, Taiki, on Taiaroa Head, New Zealand was weighted today. Las week she weighed 8.2 kg. Today, her mum, Lime-Green-Lime came in to feed Taiki right before weighing. Taiki is 177 days old and today she weighted 8.8 kg or 19.4 lbs. No worries about any supplemental feeds! Taiki’s mother has been in to feed her every day for the past six days. That means that she is foraging very close to Taiaroa Head which is in the very south of New Zealand near Dunedin.
Every year the New Zealand Department of Conservation bands the chicks born on Taiaroa Head. This year the bands will be white. Last year they were green. The banding is very important. It allows the rangers and all other interested parties to identify the birds when they return as juveniles, when they select mates, and when they return to breed. That banding will take place between 11-4pm NZST.
Many of you will have heard the term ‘translocation’ in relationship to the Ospreys in the United Kingdom and many of the projects of Roy Dennis and his Wildlife Foundation. There is news of a different translocation project, an extremely complicated one. To save the Black-footed Albatross on Midway because of rising sea waters, eggs are being transported 6000 km from Midway to Guadalupe Island in Mexico. The researchers say it was their only option. The waters are rising fast and soon Midway will flood.
They hope that the Laysan Albatross foster parents will accept the chicks and eggs and that those chicks will fledge and return to Mexico to breed – not Midway Atoll. So far 93% of the hand-reared albatross, in other projects, have fledged. Let us hope that this project has such a high success rate! Here is an article on this incredible project:
Of course, rising waters and seas heating up and fish dying are not the only threats to the albatross. Another is the level of plastic garbage in our oceans. It is estimated that by 2050 if humans do not curtail their use of and dumping of plastic, there will be more of it in the oceans than there is water.
Black-footed Albatross is exclusive to the North Pacific Ocean living and breeding at the Midway Atoll which is part of the state of Hawaii. Some nest off of Japan. They breed around the age of five years. Like other albatross, they forage off of what they can find on the surface of the ocean such as squid, fish, and crustaceans. They have been known to eat refuse and carrion. When they intake the water, you can see in the image above, that they also ingest plastic floating in the ocean. It is not, of course, just the plastic that you can see but the chemicals that keep the plastics soft that are appearing in the eggs of the birds. Those chemicals are known as phthalates. These are found in the yolk of the eggs of the birds. An ongoing study on gull eggs may reveal the damage that will be done to the chicks. I will keep you posted.
Did you know that at the turn of the century it was fashionable to have an entire dead bird decorating your hat? Etta Lemon campaigned against the use of feathers of any kind in the fashion industry.
Many of the species that I write about were made or almost made extinct because of this practice – the Albatross and the Osprey – are only two.
It is 4:30 in the morning at the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest. Tiny Little is waking up. You can see the silhouettes of the other two siblings and the parents on the tree in the distance.
After missing out, at 13:30, Tiny Little figured out what he had to do to eat. When White YW comes into the nest with a fish, you claim the fish as yours! And TL did that. Yeah for Tiny Little!!!!!! This is a good lesson to learn. In the world of Osprey you need to be a little assertive even if you would rather not.
Thanks, Dad! So glad no one else is here!
Tiny Little has the fish between his talons and he is going to eat it. Dad took the head off so he doesn’t have to deal with those annoying bones like the ones around the eyes.
It is now 16:34 on the Foulshaw Moss Nest. Tiny Little is standing on the big stick and 464 is eating a fish. Will there be any left for Tiny Little? or will Tiny Little take off flying?
Thanks so much for joining me this morning. It is raining again where I live. The sky is light grey, the trees and plants are green and it is wonderful! It is 18 degrees, a much more normal summer temperature for us. They even say we have a chance of rain tomorrow. This will not fill up the Morris River but it might help the grass, the trees and the flowers the nectar eaters need. Take care all. Stay safe. See you soon.
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I get my screen shots: Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest, and the Cornell Bird and NZ DOC Royal Cam Albatross.
