counting chicks.....

It’s that fun time of the breeding season when we are beginning to be able to see the little chicks and start counting them. Some of the early nests have chicks that are now over two to three weeks old and are fairly easy to see. they are starting to look like real Ospreys now! Some of the later nests are just recently hatched and we still can’t quite see the wee ones in the nest cup, but we can see from the adults behavior that they are, indeed, there! I am happy to report that I have seen signs of hatching at the nest of our formerly single dad. What do I call him now? He is a dad again! Yeah! We are also watching some problem nests that were built in difficult spots. I have two ”nests” on top of a metal center pole of a cell tower....although there is not much of a nest per se, since there was nothing to anchor the sticks to, so most of them fell down below and the Ospreys laid eggs precariously on top of the metal, with little protection. I was actually hoping the eggs would not hatch, because I knew it would be difficult for chicks to survive a storm in that situation. One of these nests did have eggs that hatched and two small chicks were seen, but on the next visit they were gone. The parents continue to try to rebuild a nest, but it just won’t work. Perhap its best that gene pool not be reproduced! Neither of these males are young birds either.....one is ten years old, the other is 11. Both have nested successfully in the past, tho one of them always seems to choose odd, precarious locations. A daredevil, he is. But this is not a successful breeding strategy and will not effectively spread his DNA.