There is super news regarding the fledglings. Pont Cresor Blue 494, son of Aeron Z2 and Blue 014 was spotted at Point Caillot in Brittany, France by Colette Leclerqu. Blue 494 was also a historic hatch – the first for the Pont Cresor Nest in the Glaslyn Valley.
Blue 494 has a great pedigree. He is the grandson of Monty and Glesni. Looking forward to his return in 2023!
If anyone hears of someone spotting Blue 463, Tiny Little, from the Foulshaw Moss Nest, please let me know!!!!!! Did you know that Foulshaw Moss was one of only a few Osprey nests in the world to successfully fledge three Osplets in 2021? Achieva Credit Union Osprey Nest with Tiny Tot was another.
I did a short report on the feedings at Port Lincoln in the middle of the night. There were at least two other meals for the three after I shut my computer down.
Mom knows with the cool winds coming off the water that the chicks need to be kept warm. They don’t! They are curious and wiggly and want to look around! Too funny. These three are going to be a handful.
Calypso, the 2019 hatch from this nest, a female, lives and is seen often around Port Lincoln. Solly, 2020 hatch, has a satellite transmitter and continues to stay around Kiffin Island and Eba Anchorage. Solly is 364 days old. Tomorrow is her first year hatching birthday!
The Montana Osprey Project has officially said goodbye to Iris for the 2021 season. She did not return to her nest to say goodbye this year and she was last seen about four days ago on the branch at Mt Sentinel eating a fish.
Here is one of the most iconic of Iris images. For those of you just learning about Ospreys, Iris is the oldest Osprey in the world. She is unringed. No one knows where she spends her winters. Her nest for the spring and summer is at Hellgate Canyon in Missoula, Montana. Iris, we wish you safe travels, great fishing, good weather, a wonderful winter break, and a speedy return to us.
It continues to be a good day in Osprey Land. Wishing for lots of fish for the PLO and great feedings today.
What a treat. An Osprey came into view while Ferris Akel was streaming at Wildlife Drive in Montezuma, New York.
I am off to check on the ducks today. Thank you so much for joining me. Emyr Evans if you are reading this, please open the on line store so we can all order our copies of Monty!
Thank you to the PLO Project, the Dyfi FB Page, Ferris Akel Livestream, and the Montana Osprey Project for their streaming cam where I took my screen shots.
It is 9 September in Australia. My computer tells me that it is 17:34 on the Canadian Prairies on the 8th of September. In three hours, around 20:00. CDT, the NZ DOC rangers will fit Tiaki with the tracker. She is 228 days old and could fledge any time.
Here is the link so that you can watch. Both LGL and LGK were fitted with trackers. LGK’s is still working providing valuable information on where the adults forage for food for their chicks.
In other nest news, it has been confirmed that Z2 (Aeron) and his family have now all departed for migration. Aeron’s nest is the Pont Cresor in Glaslyn. At the same time, Aran is still at the Glaslyn nest. Many worry about his late spring wing injury but, he most often doesn’t leave until mid-September.
Wales issued a statement that due to the cold spring weather and misfortunes, their six nests produced only six chicks to fledge.
9 October is one of Cornell’s big bird submission dates. This year they are even calling it October Big Day. They want everyone to do a bird count around the world. Mark it on your calendar. I will give you more details closer to the day.
eBird submissions are very helpful. Some recent discoveries, sadly, include bird and plane collision information.
A photo of an adult Osprey yesterday leads everyone in Missoula to think that Iris is still in Montana. The image was taken from the Owl Pole Camera.
Let’s chick on where the Black Storks are today.
Pikne is in Moldova.
Udu is in Southwest Poland.
Udu’s area is full of lakes!
There was no data update for Karl II.
Julge, the only surviving chick of Jan and Janika, has made its way through Germany and looks like he is flying into France. This stork picked the Western Route! Julge is the purple line going into Belgium. It is nice to know he is safe.
The last time that Big Red and Arthur’s K1 and K3 were spotted was 3 September. If they are truly gone and starting their own lives, we wish them and those that are migrating good winds, food, and safe landings.
My original computer issue was fixed but now it seems that some of the keys are sticking. It isn’t fun to keyboard. I will leave you with a couple of images of ducks and geese from my excursion to the park today. It was quiet. Everyone was off tracking down a Green Heron that had flown into town!
A juvenile male Wood Duck.Juvenile Female Wood DuckAdult male Wood Duck,moultCanada Geese
Thank you so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to drop in and see Tiaki get her tracker! My hope is that it is equipped with a 7 year battery. Take care everyone. See you soon.
Thank you to the following for their streaming cams or FB pages where I took my screen shots: Montana Osprey Project, Eagle Club of Estonia, Cornell Bird Lab and NZ DOC, and BirdMap.
Yesterday was quite an anxious day with people all over the world staying up to see if the little osprey chick was saved at the Patuxent River Nest 2. In the flurry of the moment, a few people were not thanked who need to be. The first is Burky4 from the Achieva Osprey chat group. Indeed, Burky4 was the first person to mention that there were only two chicks in the nest in the nest in the Patuxent chat room. So this is a huge shout out to Burky4. Thank you! I will not know the names of everyone and I apologize – but another shout out to S Shen who then in her own words, “found the number of Tom O’Connell, director of the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center (EESC). His business number went to voice mail which INCLUDED his cell!! Yay. I was able to text him and he gave the phone numbers for the 24 hour a day Natural Resources Emergency or Assistance.” S Shen says that another individual to be credited is Barnegat Light. I also want to thank Linda Kontol who got busy phoning numbers as well to try and get anyone’s attention after hours. I also want to thank the young man on the Wildlife Emergency Services Line again who got in touch with the Fish & Game people. It was a grand team effort and this chick might not be alive this morning were it not for the efforts of these wonderful citizen birders and government officials who worked to save this little one. And to everyone that was inadvertently missed, thank you! Tom O’Connell will be posting information on the actual individuals who went to the site this coming week.
The ‘silo’ chick is the one that went into the water, the last foster chick to be put in this nest. It is the one in duckling mode. The chick has moved but has not moved a lot. It has had a lot of excitement. Let us hope that there is no damage from either of its falls.
Every day people watching nest cams move into action when they see an animal in distress.
S Shen reminds me again how important it is to have emergency numbers readily available. She said that several years ago she noticed a chick in a Lake Barkley, Kentucky nest entangled in fishing line. There was no chat room so she went to the nest’s FB page and remembered the name of one of the chatters who said they lived close to the nest. She tracked down their phone number and called them. That person, ER, managed to get someone up to the nest and the chick was saved.
I remember that my mother had a list of emergency phone numbers for everyone helping her just in case it was needed. It was on her fridge. Here are three suggestions and I am certain everyone reading this will have more. The first is if there is a chat room associated with a nest that it have a moderator 24/7 (these are volunteers) who have emergency numbers to call the instant something happens. The second is for anyone administering a streaming cam that the local emergency wildlife numbers appear right under the name of the nest so people can locate them quickly. And the third is for everyone who watches a nest to begin to gather their own emergency numbers to call for each nest and make their emergency list for their fridge, phone, etc.
In other Osprey news, if you missed it Tiny Little of the Foulshaw Moss fledged yesterday at 20:19:57. He slept alone on the nest duckling style last night and was up early looking around. It is just a beautiful morning in Cumbria as the sun slowly rises the mist gives way to a pink hue over the landscape.
Tiny Little was doing a lot of flapping and looking. I wonder if he realizes that he actually flew yesterday?
Monty and Glesni have a grandchick. Oh, they would be so proud. Four of their chicks are now breeding. Yesterday on the Pont Croesor Nest in the Glaslyn Valley, the Only Bob of Monty and Glesni’s son, Z2 Aeron, and Blue 014 was ringed!
Blue 494 is also the first chick to hatch in this nest so there are a lot of congratulations and happiness going around. The PC nest was controversial when it was positioned where it is. Many thought it too close to the Glaslyn Nest of Aran and Mrs G. Only time will tell how this works out. For 2021, Blue 494 is also the only chick to hatch at Glaslyn with the three little ones of Aran and Mrs G dying due to the circumstances surround the storm at the end of May and Aran’s injury.
And congratulations to Idris and Telyn on Ystwyth’s fledge today! Both of their 2021 chicks have now fledged. Well done.
Doesn’t that empty nest look nice? Ystwyth is 54 days old.
She is investigating the area around the cameras.
I have some great pictures of the Ks to share with you. I will get them organized this evening. For now there is a lot of happiness to go around. Once again thank you to all of those individuals who helped save the ‘silo chick’ at Patuxent.
Thank you for joining me this morning. It is another scorcher on the Canadian prairies. There is rumour of some showers but like everywhere else in Canada we could use some rain and the birds in my garden are probably wanting their bowls and baths to be filled.
Thank you to the following streaming cams where I took my screen shots: Bywyd Gwyllt Glaslyn Wildlife video on the ringing on their FB page, Dyfi Osprey Cam, Cumbrian Wildlife Trust and the Foulshaw Moss Osprey Cam, and the Patuxent River Park Osprey Cam Nest 2.
It doesn’t ‘feel’ like there is much happening in Bird World today which probably means that a lot will take place just when I finish writing this!
Roy Dennis’s new book was released today. You can get a signed copy with a dedication if you order directly through the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation. The form has tabs for calculating the postage and the funds will go directly to Roy and his projects. Not to you know who. Perhaps that person would like to fund some Osprey Projects – just a thought.
Dennis is featured in an article, Conservation Legend Roy Dennis: We’re facing an ecological crisis, but it’s exciting too in The Guardian’s Environmental section. Dennis is eighty years old and for the past sixty years he has been at the cutting edge, the pioneer in conservation action. Without his efforts, there would be fewer raptors – or any wildlife – for that matter in the United Kingdom. In 1961, he was working hard to protect Osprey eggs from collectors! He was at Rutland Water in attempts to reintroduce the Osprey with translocations from Scotland. His most recent triumph is the reintroduction of the White-tailed Eagle. Dennis says that over the years he has learned something about ecological restoration. “When you suggest something, you get all this opposition,” says Dennis. “When you start doing it, the difficulties just disappear. Once it’s successful, the opposition claim they were supportive at the beginning.” Everyone thought that the eagles would disturb the sheep or starve to death. Neither has been true. The people of the Isle of Wight where the White-tailed Eagles were placed are thriving and Dennis gets news of the delight as people watch them soar and fish. Many say they didn’t know there were so many rabbits in the fields for prey or fish in the seas. Dennis is not-retiring. He has many, many more projects. The book is 18.99 GBP.
As anticipated, Mrs G laid her third egg today at the Glaslyn Nest. Aran was on the nest doing some additions to the walls at the time. Do you realize that this is Mrs G’s 18th season in Wales? Amazing bird. The grand dame of the Welsh ospreys.
16 April 2021
And then…there were 3!
16 April 2021
Blue 3J Telyn and Idris welcomed egg 2 yesterday at the Dyfi Nest in Wales.
There is number 2 egg. 15 April 2021
Now to the Osprey Nest that sends me yelling like someone is pulling out my fingernails. There have actually been three fish delivered on the Achieva Osprey nest today. One came in at 10:43:36. No worries about 2 being sick. It had to have been a pellet because 2 is back to being its normal self – aggressive towards Tiny Tot. While the others are busy being fed by Diane, Tiny Tot looks over and sees a fish! Seriously. A fish just laying in the nest. He must not have believed his eyes. There it is – look!
It wasn’t long until 2 noticed that Tiny Tot was mantling something and went over to investigate. Tiny Tot turned almost an entire 360 degrees protecting ‘his’ fish before 2 took it away. I wish Tiny Tot would get rewarded for being clever.
But no. Diane took the fish and fed it to 1 and 2 while Tiny Tot got nothing – not a single flake of fish.
Later he found a piece of bone in the nest with some flakes of fish and chewed at it.
There is another fish delivery at 1:40:25. Of course, 1 and 2 are still not full form the two other fish they have eaten. Tiny is waiting as I write this. It is 2:26:42, forty-seven minutes into the feeding and he is up trying to get a few bites. The question is: will there even be a morsel left for Tiny? We need steady fish deliveries today if Tiny is to be fed well.
By 2:39:40 Tiny Tot has moved away. There is fish left but the two are still eating. All I can do is hope and breathe. Tiny Tot needs food today.
At 3:10, Tiny is still chewing on his bone and the others are still eating. That fish is almost gone. What we need is another fish delivery quickly so that Tiny can have it all to himself. Not a long wait with a delivery at 7:30 pm and the others are hungry again. Hang in there Tiny Tot.
At 3:14:40 the fish tail was in Diane’s mouth and Tiny Tot had not eaten. The last good feed to fill Tiny’s crop was that early morning fish at 3:21:36 on 15 April. He still had a crop yesterday at 12:04:16. Breathe, Mary Ann. Maybe if another fish comes in he will get some of it. It is very disappointing.
Ever since the 12th of March when the competition on the Achieva nest began to fester – yes, it has been going on that long – I have thought an awful lot about the third hatch on these Osprey nests. As I have said many times, the male is called the tercel in falconry terms because it was believed in medieval times that the third egg was always a male. Tiny has survived what Tapps at the Port Lincoln Osprey Nest, one at Hellsgate, another at Savannah and on and on did not. Tiny Tot is still alive. Yes, he is small, yes his growth is stunted. In the 42 days that he has been alive – ten of them or nearly 25% of the time he does not get fed. It is no wonder that he is smaller. Good feeds like he had on a couple of days would make a world of difference now that he should be growing faster.
I began to think about all of the younger sibs that survived some extremely brutal attacks by their older sibs to become great hunters and flyers. Clearly Tiny understands mantling, being alert, keeping his head down so he does not get physically injured. I still say that 2 could kill Tiny Tot if it set its mind to it. Indeed, I have seen 2 intimidate Diane, the mother. But what about this runt business? ‘The Survival of the Fittest’? Is the fittest the larger one, the more aggressive one? what about being clever and figuring out all the work arounds.
So I began to ask people about the runts who surprised everyone. Thanks to my friend ‘T’ in Strasbourg who contacted someone else in Wales they came up with two examples, out of many, to debunk the myth that I did not know about. One example is Green 5R (04). Green 5R (04) was the son of White 03 (97) and female, Green 05 (00). Was treated with great aggression by its older sister, a female. But Green 5R (04) goes on to make history. He was the first osprey to return to England in 150 years! Green 5R (04) did this in 2006 at the age of two years. Green 5R (04) went on to breed at Rutland’s Mantou Bay from 2010-13. He failed to return from his winter migration in 2014. — I am sure glad he didn’t get tossed over the edge of the nest! Then there was Blue IZ (2016) beaten up badly by Blue 24. His father is Monty who at the time had two females on his arm. Blue 24 is on one nest and Glesni is on another. Monty eventually abandons Blue 24 in favour of Glesni. But Blue 24 was a tough bird. We all know how hard it is to hatch an egg being a single bird mom. Blue 24 had three eggs but only two hatched. It is a wonder they survived. One was Cerie Z0 (16) and the other was 1Z or Tegid. Tegid fledged when he was 50 days old on 18 July. He began his first winter migration on 26 August. Tegid returned as a fierce Osprey on 19 May 2018. Two days later, on 21 May, he visited the nest where he had hatched.
In 2019, Tegid challenged Aran for the Glaslyn Nest. He got Aran off the nest for a bit but, in the end, Aran is still at the Dyfi nest with his mate, Mrs G, in 2021. So where is Tegid?
On 4 April 2020, Tegin had landed on the Clywedog Nest and was there with Blue 5F. Watchers thought it was great that the two were together and maybe they would strike up a partnership but they needed to find their own nest! Another noted, ‘Blue 5F and Blue Z1 were together most of last year and spent a lot of time together at two different platforms , one being the Pont Croesor at Glaslyn’.
So what did Tegid do after the sighting above and where is he in 2021? If you know, please do send me a comment. It is possible that he is alive at an unmonitored nest?
Thank you for joining me and thank you to ‘T’ and her source for the information on runt ospreys. We all continue to wait. I am waiting for the hatch at UC Berkeley Peregrine Falcons, the arrival of Alia at the Loch Arkaig Nest, and for Tiny Tot to get fed. It is going to be a long night!
Thank you to the following streaming cams where I grabbed my images: Achieva Osprey, Clywedog, Cors Dyfi Wildlife Reserve, and Bywyd Gwyllt Glaslyn Wildlife.
