Success!

 Well it’s that exciting and tragic time of year….

Many of you may remember the situation I wrote about earlier with a female who had a “two timing” mate….and shortly after she laid eggs, he abandoned her for his other nest, and other female. She managed to incubate alone, leaving only briefly to get a fish for herself that she would wolf down on the edge of the nest, before resuming incubation. She actually managed it all alone and hatched two chicks! Sadly, one of them didn’t make it. But I am thrilled to announce that her remaining chick fledged successfully this weekend!!! Not many females can pull this off alone. We had another female in the same situation, but she gave up during incubation and abandoned her eggs. This female, that succeeded, was heroic in her efforts and her devotion. Her chick is a beautiful male. Me and the monitors watching over her are so happy. Photos below of this young male and his momma feeding him like a baby….even tho he can self feed!

We also have discovered many losses in recent weeks….more about that in another post. But just today I found a chick who is in trouble and I need help watching over her as we try to figure out what we can do to help her. If any of my monitors with a good scope have some extra time in the next few weeks to help monitor this nest, ( maplewood area) please email me…osprey.mn@gmail.com

Almost!

 Some  fun videos…..this is one of the first chicks to hatch in the metro and he is very close to fledging. Still  needs to get a little more loft, but he is working hard at it! When I was new at this osprey monitoring, I used to count the flaps….and when they get serious about fledging they will flap 30, 40, 50 times or more! They will be hopping and getting some loft and eventually hovering a few feet above the nest! It’s very exciting.…makes my heart rate go up!

Losses and thanks!

The past week has been trying….we have found three chicks dead on the ground. The first two may have blown out in storms, and the most recent was reported to me by a person in the public who saw the chick fall out of the nest when an adult took off….perhaps accidentally knocking it out. I went to look for it and it even had some food in its crop. So terribly sad. It’s what I hate about this time of year….its when things can so easily go wrong. Chicks are too big to be sheltered under mom all the time and yet they cant fly yet. Tho fledging brings its own tragedies. I know it’s hard for people to face this aspect of osprey monitoring…it’s not all sweetness and rainbows. But we have to document these losses, by taking photos and trying to learn what has happened when we can.…watching how the adults respond to these losses. It takes a strong mind and a soft heart to balance our desire to document, learn, and to care about the chicks that have been lost. On the first two deaths, there were other chicks in the nest to care for, so for the adults, life goes on. On the tragedy that occurred yesterday, it was the only chick and the adults were nowhere to be found this morning. They probably have no idea what happened to their chick.
I appreciate the report from the person who witnessed the fall of the chick.
We are anxiously preparing for our first fledges…..the window is open for a few nests now. There is always a lot of breath holding and excitement. Our initial chick counts and current counts are holding steady at many nests, tho we have had some mortalities along the way.
So below are a few sad photos of 2 of the chicks that perished. And a big, crowded, happy family that is preparing for the first fledge!

And I want to extend a very deep, heartfelt thank you to the Raptor Resource Project for their generous donation to us. We could not keep up this level of monitoring without a lot of help and the financial support they have shown us over the years has made such a huge difference. It is hard to find the right words to appropriately express my gratitude. A MILLION thanks to John Howe and everyone at the RRP!