First day of fall...

It was a glorious morning here in Minnesota...high fifties, a crystal clear sky, light breeze. I began my day at the farmers market and then proceeded on to check some osprey nests. I visited several of the nests that had fledged rather late and still had juveniles on them four days ago. The first nest I visited produced no ospreys at all, where there had been two young females a few days ago. The next stop was a nest that had one juvenile present four days ago. No ospreys seen or heard there either...but there was a lot of human activity there which made me wonder if that was the cause for the empty nest. I decided to pop over to a nearby nest where I had seen one adult on the last visit...he was still there, perched on the edge of the nest with a fish. After about fifteen minutes he flew in circles above the nest, displaying the fish for any hungry youngsters to see. Sure enough, he scared up another osprey and they flew in circles together for a while before the adult returned to the nest. Oddly, the other osprey landed only briefly before disappearing completely. I was not able to identify the bird as a juvenile or adult. Then the adult male took off also. I moved my car for a different view of the area. I located the adult male in a tree with his fish, but could not locate the other osprey. I returned to the other empty nest...still no ospreys there. I later received two emails from osprey observers who said they did see ospreys back there in the afternoon. I visited another one of the very latest nests to fledge and found two youngsters in the area, both with a fish of their own, tho I could not locate any adults. So we do have a few ospreys lingering in the area, tho many nests are empty. Its amazing how mesmerizing it is to just watch an osprey eating a fish, when you know it is a sight you may not enjoy for many months. I soaked up the sun and the pleasure of watching my beloved ospreys on this lovely early fall day.