They're back!

I have seen my first osprey back on its nest! And it's a female. We used to expect that males would return first , but that is not always the case. Sometimes they seem to arrive together and sometimes the females make it back first. We will see if her mate survived migration. She has always been a fairly early return. So osprey season has officially begun. Time for all the wonderful volunteer monitors to begin checking nests! I will get my scope out and begin reading bands.
I have to edit this post as we have now confirmed two ospreys back on their nests...one is a male and one is a female ...both waiting for their mates to show up. I suspect there are other birds back as well, but since the nests we are monitoring are spread out over eight counties, it takes a lot of time and a lot of gas to check them all. This is a labor love with little financial support, so I need to be careful about the miles put on my old hi mileage car. I drove 40 miles and checked four nests today. Most are still empty. As these birds show up, they will usually check their nests / territories but then seek out fishable waters, so our sightings may be sporadic until the lakes open up a bit more. We always need more  help watching over these nests if you are interested in monitoring one thru the breeding season and we REALLY need the publics help in reporting new nests to us. The ospreys are increasingly nesting on cell towers, power poles and lights over ball fields, so keep looking up!