Tag Archives: Patuxent River

Fledge at Mlade Buky and other news in Bird World

We have a fledge at the White Stork nest in Mlade Buky!

Oh, this is just so wonderful. The people of this community can be so proud as these three beautiful birds leave their nest. It was their help that made it possible for these three to be alive today. Bravo.

Here is the video so you can watch it.

The heat wave has taken more tolls on birds in the Pacific Northwest not just the Osprey chicks that literally roasted in the nests. Cooper’s Hawks have been jumping off the edge of the nests so they do not get cooked by the hot sun. This is a real tragedy in the making. Even the number of birds at my feeders is down. They spend the day in the myriad of vines in the shade of the house and the lilac bushes only coming out to drink and return to shade. The outside temperature near the water bowls reads 34 C. That is hotter than it is in the West Indies! So please put out water for the birds! Find old dishes and provide them with something. Thank you!

I hope that you are able to open this. If not you could Google ‘hawks jumping out of nests to avoid heat’. This is just so sad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/17/heat-wave-baby-hawks/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F342d388%2F60f456c29d2fda945a0abd35%2F599c8e78ade4e2475f73a675%2F48%2F73%2F60f456c29d2fda945a0abd35&fbclid=IwAR0e5EZvzioW-DWtGhVa2mcGKIgMhAEyiQ7DAhFnVizDnLFTfnYun_F2VgE

The streaming cams for many of the nests are being turned off as the season ends. Glaslyn will turn off the feed to Aran and Mrs G’s nest shortly as will Rutland Water on the Manton Bay Nest of Blue 33 and Maya. We will look forward to another season with them in the future. Blue 33 and Maya are a super Osprey couple – celebrities if you will allow me to call them that. They have been together since 2015 and have fledged 17 chicks. They raised a nest of four in 2019. That is almost unheard of and really takes a strong male to feed that many. I am impressed. I told someone if I came back as an Osprey in another life I wanted Blue 33 for my mate. He is incredible. They will return to the Rutland Manton nest in late March – usually within an hour of one another.

I expect many others will follow as it is costly to run the cameras. If you go to the camera and it is not functioning check the nest’s FB page. They have probably turned off the camera til the next season. But please remember that the breeding season is only beginning in Australia with the Peregrine Falcons, Port Lincoln Ospreys, and the WBSE.

NC0 up at the Loch of the Lowes nest is out fishing for her chicks. She is incredible. She spots the fish from the nest and dives down and gets it. Here is a very rough cut of a video of the two Loch of the Lowes chicks enjoying themselves.

I never thought I would say that a Golden Eagle nestling was cute but Zenit certainly is.

Zenit is really working on his wing flaps and from his crop it appears that he has had a feeding. That is good. I am just thinking how lucky Zenit is to be in a tree nest with shade.

Kindness is one of the cutest Bald Eagle nestlings I have ever seen! Here she is again trying to nibble around mom.

Oh, how beautiful. Kindness sitting next to Mom. Everyone thinks Kindness is a female because her Dad loves to feed her!

You are getting to be a big girl, Kindness. You are 52 days old today! More than halfway to fledge which will be around 89 days – the average for the Glacier Gardens nest. (The average in Alaska is 80 days).

Tiny Little has been in the nest every time I checked on her. A fish came in and 462 ate and ate. Then 464 came and couldn’t get the fish tail down. Tiny Little was playing with it when White YW brought in another fish. Tiny Little ignored it and dad left with the fish! Silly Tiny! Some dads will feed their chicks but White YW doesn’t seem to do this very often preferring that Blue 35 take on those duties almost exclusively. Tiny Little has yet to get confident in opening up a fish with a head.

White YW returned to the nest at 17:39 and Blue 35 flew in to feed Tiny Little. Tiny did not ignore that fish this time!!!!!!!

Oh, she just loves being fed by mum. Tiny Little eats for about forty minutes.

This kiddo should be stuffed.

At 21:00, Tiny Little and big sib 462 were cuddled up duckling style read to sleep.

It is not clear to me if Tiny Little ever did a second flight today. She was flapping those wings really hard and walking around the nest looking down for a long, long time. Often I had to leave only to return to find Tiny on the nest. Maybe someone saw her fly again?

Tiny tried everything but getting over on the middle left side of the nest and just going for it like she did when she fledged was something she did not do. There were a few good hovers. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Need to get those wings strong and self-feeding down for migration.

The couple who saved the little osprey chick that fell into the river at the Putuxent Osprey Nest 2 were surprised that so many people from around the world watch their birds! I mentioned to them the need for an emergency number on the streaming cam. Fingers crossed! Thank you to everyone that sent them a thank you note. The chick is doing well.

Thank you for joining me for a quick look at a few nests on a Sunday evening. Take care. It is very hot in so many places or there are torrential rains and flooding. So where ever you are be careful.

Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I took my screen shots: Glacier Gardens Park, Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Nest, Mlade Buky White Stork Cam, Patuxent Park Osprey Cam 2, and Asociatia Wild Bucovino.

Osprey chick falls off nest at Patuxent River Nest 2

Every Osprey Streaming Cam (or, for that matter, any wildlife streaming cam) should be required to post an emergency number. There should be one for normal daytime hours and an emergency number. Why?

This evening at 7:15 Eastern time, one of the three chicks at the Patuxent River Park Osprey Nest 2 fell into the water! These chicks cannot fly, and it is unclear to me how they are to float or swim after dropping from the height of the nest. This is the nest where an additional foster chick was placed just yesterday.

I was approached by a friend. ‘S,’ trying to find a number to call because the regular park office had just closed. So, here is the emergency Wildlife number for Maryland, everyone. 1-410-8888. This is actually a fish and game issue, but the nice young man on that emergency number put the calls through to them. Thank you! So this is a shout-out to all these streaming cams – many, many times, your citizen birders see an incident first. Put an emergency number there so they can call without wasting time and perhaps the animal’s life.

There is another issue at hand. What is the regulation for the size of an Osprey nest over water? We all know that nest sizes vary, but what should the size accommodate three growing, almost fledging chicks and two parents?

I urge you to write, e-mail, or phone the steaming cams that you watch and encourage them to include an emergency 24-hour number on their YouTube channel.

So very sorry to be bringing this news to you. I hope that there is a good ending to what well could be another horrible tragedy in this year’s ospreys. Thank you for caring.

Thank you to the Patuxent River Park Osprey Cam 2, where I took my screenshot, and to the young man at the Wildlife Emergency Services in Maryland who took my phone call seriously and acted.

Adventures in Ospreyland and other bird tales 16 July 2021

Imagine that you have one child. Everyone is happy – it is easy to provide for the one. Then imagine one day you blink and think you are seeing double. But you aren’t. There are two children. Now imagine that you are away from home and return to find three. Osprey families have the same difficulties in providing for multiple children just like humans. The adults at the Patuxent River Park in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Osprey nest number 2 now have that challenge! The pair had only one chick of their own and are now fostering two chicks about the same age as theirs.

Cathy Cohen of the Jug Bay Natural Area posted the following image on the park’s FB page today of the mom and the three chicks. The first foster chick was placed on the nest on 30 June. Nest 2 was chosen because the foster chicks are about the same age as the one hatched on the nest. There they are. It is incredible. They look like a perfect match. How wonderful to give those two lucky ones another chance. Intervention can be a good thing.

The foster Mom was said to have welcomed the chick who had fallen from a barn silo with open wings yesterday! Here she is looking over the babies while they are sleeping (or supposed to be sleeping).

And here they are this morning. It is getting warm and the new babies are getting shade.

Most of the time if I say the name ‘Iris’ everyone knows who I am talking about. If you don’t, here is a mini-bio. Iris is an Osprey. She is 26-28 years old. This makes her the oldest Osprey in the world. Iris has her nest at Hellgate in Missoula, Montana. The platform was put up for her and her mate, Stanley, to save them from getting electrocuted on the hydro lines. When Stanley did not return from migration, Iris bonded with Louis. They have only had one chick survive. That was a female, Le Le, in 2018. The reason for this is that Louis has another mate and another nest at the ballpark. For years, people have watched Iris perfect the renovations on her nest, catch magnificent fish, mate with Louis, lay her eggs and then either have the ravens steal and eat the eggs or have the chicks die because the female cannot protect them and fish at the same time. Individuals are very vocal in their support of Iris. They want her to have another mate and to be able to raise chicks. I have always thought maybe she could retire with dignity and just take care of herself during her summers in Montana. At the same time you know just seeing her work on the nest and the fish she brings in that she would be an amazing parent. The issue is one of territory. Iris’s nest is in Louis’s territory – according to Louis. Louis has protected Iris on a couple of occasions this summer from intruders. Iris has also managed on her own to thwart them. She is strongly independent.

When someone posted an image of Iris sitting on a branch with another Osprey on Twitter 15 July 2021, people got excited.

The notion that Ospreys mate for life is not consistently true. When Blue 5F, Seren, got tired of laying a nest full of eggs only to be abandoned by Aran because he also had a nest with Mrs G at Glaslyn, she left Aran’s territory and found another mate, Dylan, at Clywedog. According to Google Maps, Seren moved a distance of 67.4 miles. Seren and Dylan are the proud parents, this season, of fledgling Blue 396 otherwise known as Only Bob.

It will be very curious to see how things develop over the end of the summer.

We all worry about Tiny Little. It is easy to forget looking at Blue 463 that at one time his older siblings kept him from eating and were quite aggressive. Because of that Tiny Little is hesitant to engage with the older siblings and, in particular, Blue 462. So there are worries that he will not get enough to eat. Today White YW brought in a fish and within about 15 minutes he brought in another fish. Blue 35 took that one and fed Tiny Little while the other two were eating fish pieces. What a beautiful image of Mum and her three chicks on the Foulshaw Moss nest having a nice meal of fish.

People have been asking if Tiny Little has been flapping. OH, yes, he flaps those wings all the time.

If you want to join in the fun watching Tiny Little prepare to fledge, this is the link to the Cumbrian Wildlife Osprey Cam:

https://www.cumbriawildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife/cams/osprey-cam

Erick Green with the Montana Osprey Project posted some images of chicks who were entangled with baling twine. They saved three chicks a week ago but sadly one had died. Another chick had twine cutting into his right leg to the bone. Dr Green reported today that the chick is doing fabulous today. In his posting I learned something interesting. He says, “One thing that seems to work in their favor is that ospreys (and all birds) have very high body temperatures – about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. These high body temperatures help birds fight off many bacterial infections.”

Only Bob, Blue 396, has gotten really good at flying and zooms in when Dad Dylan does a food drop. Poor Seren might have to discuss Dylan bringing in an extra fish for her. Only Bob can finish them off pretty good! Look at how big this fledgling is. Wow. Dylan delivered the fish around 13:09.

At the Dyfi Nest, Idris and Telyn are waiting for Ystwyth to fledge! So is her brother Dysynni. He is sitting there urging her to come on and join in the fun while the parents are up on the camera perches watching. Ystwyth was getting some really good height to her hovering and she will go soon if not today. She is 53 days old.

Here is Ystwyth hovering. Isn’t she great?

Other nest news:

There is sad news coming out of Taiaroa Head, NZ. One of 33 Northern Albatross chicks died yesterday. The chick was not gaining weight and the NZ DOC rangers gave it a supplementary feeding. When the chick died following this it was discovered during the necroscopy that it had a piece of charcoal stuck in its trachea. As Sharon Dunne notes, charcoal floats on the surface of the ocean and it can easily be taken in by the parents when they are out fishing for food for their chick. I never imagined charcoal! Everyone is distraught. The rangers do such an excellent job taking care of these parents and chicks. Condolences go out to all of them including the albatross parents.

Our little Golden Eagle, Zenit, has had a prey delivery – a bird – and is beginning to stand really tall and strong on its legs – adult style. All good news! The Golden Eagles eat the bones – absolutely every part of their prey so Zenit will have something later. Still, having lots of meat is what this young eaglet needs right now. Excellent news.

Ferris Akel has posted a nicely edited version of his tour on Wildlife Drive on the 14th. The editing is well done and there are discreet bird names in case you do not recognize what you are looking at. There are some really nice shots of a Black Tern. Here is that short clip.

My friend, ‘T’ tells me that there is a stork with an injured food that is getting a prosthesis. Will try and find out all the news on this incredible intervention.

And speaking of storks, there are still three White Storklings on the Mlade Buky nest in Czechoslovakia:

That’s a short morning round up of happenings late Thursday night and early Friday morning at some nests. Remember that Ferris Akel does his tours on Saturday. He begins at noon NY time and ends up at the Cornell Campus. It is a great opportunity to see the Red tail fledglings in action. They have now moved from flying near to the nest to other buildings farther away. Big Red and Arthur do this with prey drops gradually to expand their territory. It will not be too long til they are down by the barns at Cornell. Always fun. You can search Ferris Akel Livestream on YT. Thank you so much for joining me. Take care everyone.

Thank you to the following for their streaming cams where I get my screen shots or add their videos: Ferris Akel Live Tour, Patuxent River Park Ospreys, Montana Osprey Project FB Page, Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and Foulshaw Moss Osprey Cam, Dyfi Osprey Project, CarnyX Wild and Llyn Clydewog Osprey Cam, Capi Hnizdo- Mlade Buky, and Asociatia Wild Bucinova.