Confirming successful fledging….

 Crazy busy weekend….frantically trying to gather data on successful fledging….that means visiting nests and watching for a while to try to account for all chicks right after fledge. It’s not easy, it can be time consuming. Many people don’t understand the value of this info….it determines if a nest is successful or not, it also determines the number of chicks that we record for the overall totals. My mentor, Sergej Postupalsky, wrote a paper about terms and methodology that is still very much a guiding light for me. It’s important that we discern the various causes for failure and what constitutes success. I had a boss that wanted us to consider the number of chicks we banded at 4.5-5 weeks of age as the final number. Sergej strongly disagreed with that since at that age the chicks are only about half way thru their development….and many won’t fledge until they are close to 8 weeks old. There are a lot of losses in those weeks, so an earlier number is falsely exaggerated, and slants the data. So I try very hard to get a number of chicks right before fledging age….and then confirm the number of chicks that we know fledged successfully. That does not mean they flew away….since osprey chicks are dependent upon their parents for food for several weeks or a month post fledge. So we are looking for chicks that have flown, landed safely somewhere and are returning to the nest to be fed. This is not easy. I am working very, VERY hard to get this data. Sometimes I just don’t get back soon enough after fledge to find them all and see that they are being fed. With well over 200 nests now, it’s becoming an impossible task without more help.

But I am making the rounds and doing my best. I visited two nests yesterday where I had seen no chicks on the nest, which worried me…..I could not find them anywhere. And upon this return visit…Boom! One by one they returned to the nest!! Some photos below of those nests with three chicks each. I also went to another nest where I had seen all three fledged last week and sadly, the nest was empty….but I thought, it’s ok. Then I heard this very loud foodbegging….and I looked up and a chick was right above my car! I slowly mover around to take a photo….but my scope almost couldnt zoom out enough to fit her in the frame….she was so close! And so tolerant. I laughed……food begging with a fish in her talons!

I call these gatherings of all chicks “the morning meeting” ….and it got a bit testy at the first one!