I had a very exciting morning today….there is a lovely banded male who nested on a cell tower for the past five years, and sadly his nest was removed and the tower was altered so he could not rebuild there this year. I searched for him and found him a short distance away in other cell tower. He and his mate were there dropping a few sticks. When I visited again, no real progress had been made and the female was gone. I watched the male just sitting there. The next time I visited, there were no ospreys at all. I searched for him at least three times this summer to no avail. I was very fond of this banded male….he also has a brother who is nesting about 8-10 miles away. I knew he had to be around and I also know that ospreys are very philopatric….loyal to their nesting territories. As I headed out this morning I thought, I will do one more search, extending a bit further south. I checked cell towers, transmission towers, a previous nest site of his…and found nothing. I went back to the cell tower where I last saw him…no one there. As I was driving away I saw an osprey flying across the road with a stick….I quickly turned around and got myself focused on the cell tower as he landed….IT WAS HIM! I was so happy! He is alone, but now he is doing some work on building a nest on that cell tower. I don’t know why he didn’t do it earlier….but I wonder if they nested somewhere else and failed. I just don’t know….but finding him again made me very happy. I will recheck to see how the nest is going and I hope his female comes back too. He is a great parent who has fledged chicks every year except this one. It’s funny how attached you can get to these banded birds when you watch them year after year. Gosh, that made my day….
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