Friday, May 1, 2015

Musical nests...

It's been quite a week. Another major car repair, AHHHHH. And I have to say I have never seen such a widespread and amazing game of musical nests as I have this year. I am having to return to nests repeatedly to see who is there and figure out where the birds are that were there two weeks ago! One male has been seen, and his bands read, on four different nests, in four different parts of the metro! So I keep returning to where I saw him last, to see who is there now! Some birds have moved to new nests for reasons I don't fully understand. There have been a lot of new, young birds who arrived early and were identified...and then were displaced by the regular residential osprey of past years. Where did they go? And sadly, it seems like a lot of Ospreys who I have been watching for years, many of them middle aged, have not returned to their nests. It takes a lot of time to read and re read bands at all these sites. I am being stretched pretty thin these days. Many nests have begun incubating eggs, and yet, some nests have new residents that are still very much engaged in the courtship process. I watched a spectacular sky dance today...singing the courtship song, doing the dipsy doodle up and down dance with a fish in the air...and then zooming down to the nest, only to mantle over the fish and refuse to share! Ha Ha...won't get the girl that way! She seemed the forgiving type tho.
I love this time of year!

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