A better world

We have had a trying few days...and in an odd way, it’s been an uplifting experience. First let me say, I am an idealist. Yup....head in the clouds, often crushed by humanity’s selfishness. But two days ago I got a call about an injured Osprey chick. This poor thing had gone thru such an ordeal. This is a nest in a gravel pit and the fledgling had apparently landed on a conveyer belt carrying gravel to dump into a pile. One of the guys working in the pit saw an Osprey go thru a chute and get spit out into a  pile of gravel and was being buried alive  in gravel. He immediately shut the equipment down and rescued the chick. They called me. It was rush hour and this nest was as far away from me as you can get.....so I called the Raptor Center to see if they had a volunteer closer by that could pick the bird up and take it in for medical care. They had one who lived very near the gravel pit and knew about the nest and would do it. Whew. The good news is that although the poor chick was having some trouble breathing ( gravel dust) and an abrasion on its wing...it had no broken bones! They gave it oxygen overnight and he was doing better the next day. The rehab director talked to me about possible release in about a week but wanted to know what the situation was at it’s nest. Unfortunately, last evening I got another message from the gravel pit guys about another injured chick. This was late in the evening and I could not get the chick before the raptor center closed so arrangements were made for that same volunteer to pick it up in the early morning. Sadly, that chick died overnight. I spent five hours in that gravel pit  today trying to determine if the dad was bringing fish to the remaining chick. As our population of ospreys has grown, behaviors have changed, and with so many nests close together, I must admit it can be difficult to determine which fledglings belong on which nest, and which ones are roving to neighboring nests! But the real reason I wanted to write this post was to say how uplifting it is to see all these people come together, to work so hard to save one, individual young Osprey. From those wonderful guys in the gravel pit , Nate Paulson and Steve Grzybowski, who were paying such close attention and rescued this little guy, put him in a box, and contacted me; to the Raptor Center volunteer who picked the chick up and took him to get the medical care he needed, to the clinic manager at TRC, Lori Arent and the rehab manager, Josh Travers, to all the other medical staff at TRC  and volunteers there who are caring for him, and of course my efforts as well. It truely takes a village. To see all these people spend their time and energy without ego, and for some of us without pay, to help this little Osprey survive and hopefully make it back to his nest...Well, it speaks to the best part of humanity, who think that every little life matters and is worth their time and energy. Sadly, I once worked for a man that said “we dont care about individual birds, we only care about the population as a whole” , but I just don’t agree and have often felt out of step in my idealism and my concern for each and every Osprey. So to have a trying situation, that definitely has had some very painful moments, and yet to see all these special, caring people work for the benefit of one little Osprey, gives me some hope for the world. I work so hard, and so do these other people, because we all think that each life is precious. When good people come together to do the right thing...I am uplifted by the sense of community, the way it’s supposed to be. No ego, no power issues, just, damn good hearts. Thanks to all who have helped rescue this chick. I hope we manage to organize a successful release for this little guy, so he can have a good long  life. 

Which end is up?

Here we are in mid August already. Many of our chicks have fledged, tho we have a few  very late nests that may not fledge till late August! I am spending a lot of time visiting nests and searching for chicks to confirm successful fledging. It’s often a challenge but I rather enjoy these searches. Where’s Waldo! It’s also a time when I have to put together some pieces to solve a puzzle. We have one nest that I have visited five times since late June to early August. Each time I clearly saw two chicks in the nest, usually with a parent. Another monitor suddenly saw three chicks in this nest, on at  least two occasions. Now I know with my wonderful scope, and 26 years of experience, I did not miscount the chicks five times! So how do we explain this? Well, at this time of year, post fledge, it’s not uncommon for a neighbor chick to pay some visits to the kids across the street. As our population grows and nests are closer and closer together, these roving chicks have easy opportunities to stop by and perhaps steal a fish. A few years back, I found a banded chick visiting several different nests and stealing fish from those younger chicks. Pretty funny! That’s one way to survive! 

I have also spent some time this year at a nest with three female chicks which are very entertaining. As I observed one day, Dear old Dad dropped off a fish in the nest and all three chicks dove for it, and a hysterical fight for the flopping fish ensued. Finally one came up the winner, but she had the fish upside down and was trying to start eating the tail first! The problem was, it was still flopping! She turned around in circles as she struggled to keep it away from the others. They were both hollering (“you are doing it all wrong!). She did not dare drop it and turn it around because someone else might get the fish! She struggled for the longest time....trying to grab that flopping tail and get a bite out of it. I was laughing out loud. Finally, exasperated, she dropped the fish and walked away. “ I give up”! All three chicks sat there staring at the fish and crying, as if they expected Mom to come and feed them. Eventually another chick decided to give it a try. This youngster ALSO grabbed the fish with the tail first, and tried to start eating it, at which point I started coaching from the sidelines, out loud, sitting in my car. Turn it around honey! ( gosh I hope no one catches me talking out loud to the ospreys) But this juvenile took my advice and turned the fish around and started to rip and tear those yummy fish lips. Success! Every time I visit this nest I end up belly laughing out loud. The struggle to grow up is real! How can you not love these birds?

New nests, new pairs...

I know I say this all the time, but CRAZY busy....chicks are fledging and I am trying to be sure we have accurate numbers, and confirming successful fledging whenever I can. Just because a chick flies away does not make it a successful fledge....we need to confirm that they are landing safely somewhere and making it back to the nest to eat. In the process of visiting many nests, it’s amazing how many new adults are out there looking for mates and territories. I found a new nest being started and read the band on a male I had never seen before. I went to another nest to check the chicks and heard all this chirping that was not coming from the nest, so I kept walking and found some dead trees with four adult ospreys perched there talking to each other. Two were banded and two were not. I only got a partial read on one band before they flew off. Today I found three ospreys circling near a nest that had failed in May. The original pair there were both unbanded, but this pair included a banded male, but again he flew off before I got it read. Clearly the growth of the population has stimulated all this increased socializing among these adults. The one band I successfully read was a three year old, so probably looking to establish a pair bond and a territory for the first time. I often see young pairs building nests and claiming a territory at this time, late in the season. The difficult thing is that we must separate frustration nests, built by pairs whose earlier breeding attempt failed, from new nests. If at least one of the pair is banded, this is fairly easy to do...but with so many unbanded birds now, it can be problematic. For good scientific methods, we can’t count one pair of ospreys twice....which can happen when they build frustration nests. When we are counting nests, we are really counting pairs of ospreys. A pair that builds multiple nests can’t be counted twice without skewing the data. Now that we have some fairly dense clusters of nests, and unbanded birds, it’s not always easy to figure things out. So I make many visits, carefully noting feather markings, birds going back and forth between two nests, defending two nests. It’s exciting, fun, educational and exhausting.