Another very sad day yesterday….we have lost two chicks on the Arboretum cam nest. As many know, the power was disrupted to the cam for a few days. All three chicks were doing fabulous, being well fed, and all showing normal behaviors prior to the problem with the power to the cam. Yesterday morning the cam came back on and there is only one live chick. It is devastating. We had no severe weather, just heavy rain. But Ospreys can usually deal with that. It was not torrential rain by any means. It appeared that another osprey nest at the Arboretum failed about a week ago….for unknown reasons. And the third nest at the Arb appears to have only one chick….and they are GREAT parents there.
So we don’t know what happened to the Arb cam chicks. These early weeks in an ospreys life are very vulnerable ones. Chicks at that age cannot thermoregulate and they have no feathers so if they got too wet they could have died from hypothermia. Some people say they were not being fed, but everytime I checked in I was able to see good feedings, with each chick being fed. But several days without being able to see what occurred leaves us without any real answers. Its heartbreaking.
I will be checking other nests in the area this week to see if there is any wider pattern. In other parts of the metro I am seeing a lot of three chick nests! A few failed nests, and a few that seem to be incubating too long which may mean eggs that aren’t viable.
I did watch a sweet scene on one nest where the male was feeding both mom and the chick.
I hope the remaining chick at the Arb makes it. It started out well this morning with the chick being fed.
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