OMG my heart….

 OMG….my heart! I visited the female who is raising chicks alone today….she has THREE beautiful bobble heads….and I was overwhelmed with love and anxiety. How will she feed three chicks alone….and get enough food herself? She left for about 7 minutes to get a fish….and during that time I saw one little head pop up briefly….but when she came back with a fish at first I saw two heads and then OMG three…. Wow. I was mesmerized watching them. It was so damn hard to move on to other nests….

So this post will just be about her. That males other nest has not hatched yet….
Why do these pictures make me cry? So many big feelings….
I love what I do, I love these birds, I love THIS osprey in particular, and I am so lucky to be skilled enough to even know what’s going on each nest.. how many people would even know her story without following that male, reading bands, watching her so closely. I have been challenged lately by trying to explain what is going on to many of the volunteers….somehow I notice more….and I can’t figure out why. I understand behaviors after all these years….and I am patient, and I am still deeply curious about what is happening, so I often add up behaviors differently, I come to different conclusions, I have a good scope….I ran into a lot of new people today and shared a lot of stories…I LOVE teaching people about ospreys!
I literally feel so much in my chest right now looking at these photos and thinking about this female and all she has faced, endured, and is up against in the coming days and weeks. On two different nests in my 33 years of studying them, ( only two) I have seen an unrelated male bring fish to a nest where he was NOT the father. I remember talking to my mentor Sergej about this and he explained to me it is an unusual behavior, but it is a way for a male to secure a territory. He gets a territory and a female….but he has to bring food to chicks that do not carry his DNA. It’s also unusual for a female to allow an unrelated male anywhere near her nest.…but if he has a fish….and she is desperate, well maybe. Dare I hope for this? I do have a monitor, Pat, who witnessed this several years ago on a nest she was monitoring. My goodness we witnessed a lot and learned so much as we both put in many extra hours observing and documenting this unusual behavior. ( too long a story and too much to write now).
I also witnessed an unrelated male bring fish to a nest many years ago, in the beginning of my researching days…..after a male was hit by a car and killed when the female had young chicks. He never actually fed the chicks or brought fish directly to them, but he brought fish to the female, as a courtship behavior, which allowed her and her chicks to survive….and he became the territorial male at that for many years after that.
Or maybe the actual dad’s other nest will fail….and he will bring fish to this nest?
I am hoping for something miraculous to happen for this female and her awesome little family. Think about her, incubating alone for 39 days, leaving to feed herself without being gone too long. She had a perfect success to hatch three chicks. OMG my heart.