August 17

 OK!OK!OK….ONE MORE TRY!

We went out and tried one more time to find the chick. We failed. Today even the male was hard to find. The female was sitting in one of her favorite perches alone. we checked some other unlikely spots where we were told the parents were circling the day little Arb jumped out….prowling thru the brush. Sadly we found nothing, heard nothing. We watched momma for quite some time but she gave us no clues.

Another round of thanks to Carrie, Debbie and Ken. We talked about how difficult it is to let go, to accept that that little bugger that I held in my arms so recently has probably perished. He deserved better. This outcome is so tragic, especially knowing how close to a successful fledge he probably was. He just needed a little more safe time on his nest. Sigh. So today, we grieve. Tomorrow I go look for that other chick that had a close call and whose survival needs to be confirmed.

I will not forget this little osprey anytime soon. Nor will I forget his panicked departure from the nest. We wanted to help him so badly.

August 16

 I searched the Arb from 9 to almost 5:30 today for the missing chick. I started by whacking my way thru the squash field, thinking the chick could be hiding in there….and he still could be, but I couldnt see or hear him. Then a new volunteer showed up and she has decided to become our newest nest monitor next year! It was lovely to meet Carrie Bowar and share some info about ospreys as we looked around. During her time we located the adults and spent time watching them in hopes that they might get a fish and fly around, which might stimulate a food begging response from a chick. She was lucky to get to see the female bathing! Fun to watch her splash and duck and float in the water. But we did not hear any vocalizations that sounded like the chick. Then two of my regular nest monitors showed up, Debbie Jordan (yes, the debbie who worked so hard on the cell tower situation. She is a glutton for punishment so showed up today too!) and Ken Fischer , who spent all afternoon beating bushes, searching the prairie, scanning the lake, looking, and listening. Sadly, we found no chick, heard no food begging, found no evidence of the chick at all. We watched the male flying loops over the nesting area with a stick, clearly looking for the chick. Later in the day we found both of them in a dead tree east of the nest. They did not seem distressed, tho at times seemed to be looking for the chick. They did not ever land back on the nest. By the end of the day, the Arb was being locked up, noone inquired about our results, no Arb employees helped us today. It was very hard for us to give up and go home. We dragged our feet, tried to figure out where else this chick could possibly be, where else we could possibly look, talked about tomorrow…..all three of these volunteers wanted to try again, but I am not sure it will be fruitful. I have a chick I need to check on over on the opposite side of the metro. Its so discouraging and depressing. But the ray of light that I am grateful for is these wonderful, osprey loving volunteers on my project who showed up and trudged around on this muggy day because they wanted so much to find this young osprey who had won our hearts. We were unable to do that, and we do feel defeated….but at least we were able to share our disappointment. A million thanks to Carrie, Debbie and Ken.

August 15

 I am aware that the Arb chick jumped out of the nest again, just as he did yesterday when human activity was occurring directly under the nest. There was an emergency repair needed on Monday when a water line broke. This stage of development is a fragile time and its easy to cause a chick to “pre fledge” or jump too soon, before he has fully developed the necessary strength and skills to fly and to land safely. He has not been flapping, hovering or displaying the usual behaviors which preceed a successful fledge. He is still within the window of time when fledging is normally expected.

He and the adults were giving alarm calls before he took off.

When I saw what happened, I once again called the Arb. I also went out there and I spent three hours searching for the chick. Jim joined me and helped search all over the area but we could not find him or hear him. I watched the adults carefully for clues, but when they flew over, I did not hear the chick food begging. Jim had to go, so at 4:30 we ceased searching. The chick is very vulnerable on the ground overnight, and is not being fed. ( Adult ospreys generally wont feed a chick on the ground because it leaves them vulnerable to predation).

I will return in the morning and try again.

Baling twine…..disaster

 We finally got the chick down from a cell tower where it was in trouble

. It’s been over 24 hours of hanging there thrashing, and our hearts breaking more and more each moment it struggled. For some reason all the calls to the cell company were unfruitful yesterday. A million thanks to Debbie Jordan , a Twin Cities Metro Osprey Watch volunteer extraordinaire, for all her work and for never giving up. Today she finally got in touch with someone at the cell company in charge of environmental stuff who said no one told her about this situation yesterday. Well, long story short we were finally connected to Meridian Blue Construction who sent a crew to rescue the chick. The chick was still alive but sadly, another chick was dead in the nest. Killed by baling twine. A deep thanks goes out to every one at Meridian Blue….Alicia and Bob, the climbers Jake and Will for doing heroic work rescuing this poor bird. I cannot thank them enough. Also thanks to Karen, a transport volunteer from The Raptor Center, for taking the bird to TRC for medical help. We will keep you posted about it’s condition when we hear something.

What must we do to get people to dispose of that baling twine safely so these things don’t happen???? This stuff is lethal to many kinds of wildlife. Ospreys are attracted to it because of its bright color, and bring it to the nest and it never deteriorates, it shreds into fine, cutting material. People MUST pick it up and dispose of it appropriately. I post gruesome photos to make people aware of just how awful this stuff is. I know I am preaching to the choir here.

Anyway just as I finish up that situation I hear the Little Arb chick jumped out again….apparently frightened by some activity below. So I called our hero at the Arb, Jim Elskamp, and he found our little friend and got him back in the nest. A special thanks again to Jim! Our little osprey should be fledging now but I have not seen much flapping of his wings…..so he needs to do some work to build his strength. He is the correct age for fledging and his feathers should be hard penned by now. Time for some prefledge workouts buddy!

So a million thanks to everyone at Meridian Blue, and to Jim at the Arb….and especially to Debbie Jordan for her perseverance in kicking butts until we got the help we needed.

Rescued the Arb chick again

 We had to rescue the Arboretum cam chick twice this week….the first time last Wednesday after it blew out of the nest in a storm, and the second time at 6:30 am this morning when it was self feeding and a little gust of wind flipped him over….he hung on the side of the nest for a while and then fell. I saw it and called the Groundskeeper Jim Elskamp at 7 a.m.  and we met out there and found the chick and returned him to the nest again. Some photos below of both rescues…we took him to the Raptor Center on Wednesday for observation, but today we just consulted with the vet there, and decided to put him back on the nest. We will all be watching for any signs of trouble…..hoping he stays put for a while now.

Single Dad

 For those of you who are wondering about the new single Dad that I wrote about recently….me and two monitors are keeping a close eye on them. I visited that nest twice today….first thing in the morning I arrived and found the chick sitting up on the nest with a pretty full crop. Dad was perched nearby, watching over the little guy. Dad took off and grabbed some fresh grasses and brought them to the nest. Then he walked around the nest, arranging things before he picked up a half eaten fish that was on the nest and began feeding the little guy. What was so heart warming to me was that the chick had a fairly full crop, and Dads was empty.

Gosh its so easy to think these situations are hopeless, but this male is coming around. I think the little guy is raising this male to be a good dad! We have been thru some really scorching hot weather, and our little friend is surviving. Its been almost a month since we discovered the Mom missing. We worry about him being alone so much….but today after I checked a bunch of other nests, I came back and found Dad again, on the nest edge, just hanging out with the chick about five hours later, and the little one had a full crop again! He looks like he may have 10 days to two weeks till fledge…..so keep your fingers crossed! But today I saw the male there more than I have on other visits, and the chick is doing well. Its looking like this chick might make it! He was grabbing the fish from Dad this morning with some attitude!

I have fallen in love with him.

Challenging summer….

 Well folks its been a hell of a summer for me personally, with a lot of difficult circumstances presenting themselves that have kept me from the osprey fieldwork and from writing posts or answering all emails. Stumbling along the best I can. Sometimes life just presents us with obstacles and challenges and we just cant do what we want every day. My apologies. I am squeezing in nest visits when possible. So many success stories with healthy chicks preparing to fledge….and some sad failures. Many of the long time readers will remember my stories about the single Dad who raised three chicks on his own after his mate disappeared when the chicks were about 3-4 weeks old. All fledged successfully! That male holds a special place in my heart tho he is no longer with us. Well this year we have a similar story….a nest where the female just disappeared leaving a male to care for one chick on his own. Sadly we are coming to realize that he does not have the strong parental instinct's that our other single Dad did. That other male had previous parental experience which probably served him well, and this one may be a first time father. This chick was also younger when the female disappeared, and this male is rarely on the nest. Its been about a week and a half and the chick is surviving, but is alone much of the time, and the male is gone for 3 hours at a time routinely. There are three of us taking turns monitoring the nest the best we can…..but with a stretch of extreme heat predicted in the coming week, I wonder if the little guy will get enough fish to stay hydrated. Fingers crossed! He is starting to feather out nicely so will have a little more thermal protection. I do remember at the beginning of that other situation, I thought the chicks were doomed, but sometimes nature has a way of surprising us!

Yesterday I was watching a nest where the male delivered a fish and the female began feeding the chicks……and males often stay to watch a feeding, but this one lined up with the chicks to be fed by Mom!!!!! What the heck? He kept snatching those fish bites before the little guys could! I have never seen an adult male do that! Mom finally turned away to try to feed the chicks from her other side. Funny, and well, just weird. I scratched my head…..I love it when I see a new behavior, and it challenges me to make sense of it. Dont ask me to explain….cause I can‘t!

I think we may see the first flights of some of our older chicks in the next week…..so fasten your seat belts!