Sunday, June 15, 2014

Unhatched eggs

There are lots of interesting dramas and behaviors going on in the osprey world. I will try to share some of them as time allows. Tonight I am feeling fairly certain that the other two eggs on the Arboretum nest will not hatch. It's been 5.5 -6 days since the first egg hatched. That is longer than the normal interval between eggs. As I stated earlier I have noticed smaller broods from older males and suspect that fertility may drop in males as they age. Still we can be happy that Mr 79 produced one chick that appears to be healthy. This is the first offspring from this female...and possibly his last. (Our oldest male in the past was 22 years old in his final breeding season. He only produced one chick that year also, but the chick died / disappeared from the nest in late July, possible predation.) The new little guy on the Arb nest will get all the food without competition. Lucky! I love seeing his full crop! The female seemed very restless today. But I have seen no sign of hatching...I wonder if she is beginning to figure out that the eggs are not going to hatch. They seem to give up slowly.
Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. UnknownJune 16, 2014 at 2:52 PM

    Vanessa, I think you're correct about the remaining eggs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. stangJune 17, 2014 at 7:34 AM

    We have an osprey nest in our pine tree at the cabin on Lake Francis in Elysian, MN. Do you consider that metro?
    We had very high winds in a storm last night and we found one dead baby osprey at the base of the tree. It is about 11". I don't know if anyone tracks this. I am new to osprey watch. We discovered this nest last year but I never saw any activity. This spring I saw the osprey flying over the water and last two weeks I have seen a bird sitting on the edge. Once I saw two flying in the wooded area right behind us. It is very hard to get a glimpse because of all the foliage and they are so high up. This morning we have seen one adult and definitely one little head popping up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AbbyJune 20, 2014 at 1:48 PM

    my kids and I were wondering if the baby will be banded before leaving the nest or will he/she be too small yet?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)