Alcoa Osprey Nest

The Alcoa Osprey nest has been fun to watch over the past week. The three young have all fledged, but are returning to the nest routinely to eat the fish that the adults bring in.

One fledged last week. Then when I brought up the camera Monday morning I found only one of the young in the nest with Mom. One had fledged over the weekend:

It was eating while Mom kept watch. Then one of the fledglings flew in and was crying for the food that the other one was eating. The nestling mantled over the food, the first time I've seen one of the Osprey do this.

At one point, Dad brought in a fish. Mom tried to take it from him by stepping on it, but Dad couldn't shake it loose. At one point, he even tried to fly away while Mom still had ahold of it:

After I saved the above s'cap and turned back to the cam, Dad was gone and so was the fish... But there has been plenty of fish at this nest. Here are two of the offspring eating:

Later in the day I pulled up the cam and found this. I was hoping to see the last one fledge, but I missed it:

I have seen all three fledglings in the nest. They are all well fed and in good shape. Here's one of the fledglings, with a fat crop and tired, resting on one foot. It stayed like this for about 10 minutes:

I saw an interesting interaction at the nest today. Mom came into the nest with a fish. She wanted one of the fledglings to take it. She flap/bumped him to try to get his attention. He didn't understand what was going on and kept his back turned and head down, in a subsurvient posture. He seemed to think he was in trouble. After about the 8th bump, he flew. One of the other fledglings then grabbed the fish in its beak and pulled, but it wouldn't come free off of Mom's foot. But Mom rewarded the effort by feeding the fledgling. Eventually, the other fledgling returned to the nest and was fed by Mom. The third just stayed on the "branch" and watched. Probably still learning.

Another thing I've noticed about the Osprey are how gently they land. Bald Eagles "stick the landing" or they don't. They come in fast and try to use their wings to slow them down as their feet stretch out to the branch for the landing. The Osprey use their ability to hover to gently float down when they land. I've only seen one bad landing at the nest, when the fledgling came down with a foot on a sibling's back. At the Norfolk Bald Eagle nest, we'd see a Bald Eagle fledgling hanging upside down at least once per nesting season.

Alcoa Osprey Nest, Red-tailed Hawk on Feathered Photography, Great Find Momo

I've been watching the Alcoa Osprey nest a lot lately. I'm starting to think that Osprey are pretty smart.

On Wednesday, Mom was feeding the two that haven't fledged yet. The fledgling wasn't in the nest at the time. I'm not sure if they ate it all or if she took some leftovers out of the nest with her since I missed seeing her depart the nest. Minutes later, she arrived back at the nest with some food. The two that haven't fledged seemed interested in it, even though they had just eaten -- They gathered around Mom and were crying to be fed. She ignored them. She was looking out and calling. The fledgling came in. Then she started feeding him. What a good mom!

I commented to someone the other day a difference I had observed between these Osprey chicks and Bald Eagles that are ready to fledge. At this Osprey nest, one has fledged and the other two are going to go any day now. But these Osprey chicks were not self-feeding. I had seen them get impatient and peck at the fish that Mom was standing on while she fed them. But that was it. Long before the time Bald Eagles are ready to fledge, they are rushing to grab the food when it's delivered to the nest and the winner mantles over it to keep the other chicks away. They start self-feeding pretty soon after they learn to stand. But I hadn't observed this behavior with the Osprey. Then, yesterday, Mom came into the nest with a fish. The two that have not yet fledged were in the nest. She deliberately tore the fish in half as she fed them. Then she stopped feeding them and left the pieces laying in the nest. One grabbed the tail end of the fish and dragged it toward the camera and started pecking at it. It made a few attempts at the tail before figuring out that it was easier to tear pieces off the same area Mom had been feeding from. The other sibling figured it out too. Here they both are, bent to the task:

Eventually, the fledgling returned to the nest and was also given the opportunity to self-feed. Even after fledging, the learning continues...

Some recent s'caps:
One of the two that haven't fledged contemplates the branch (Mom is on the right):

Both of these chicks (left and center) are standing on the part of the 'branches' that are inside the nest. But this does not count as branching:



This s'cap shows the fledgling flying above the trees and Mom is flying away from the nest, right below the logo. The chick standing in the nest still hasn't quite achieved 'branching' but is getting a feel for it:

Here's Mom flying in with a fish:

It was raining yesterday at the nest. It didn't stop the wingercizing. Sing it with me, "I'm winging in the rain, I'm winging in the rain..."

It was windy while it was raining. This youngster hop/flew pretty high, got blown sideways, and came down on the branch. Finally one of the remaining chicks has branched:

And two funny s'caps. A wasp must be building a nest on the camera. Because we've been seeing a lot of this:

Here's another. Does anyone remember the dead spider on the NBG camera? At least this wasp moves out of the way... But for now, "Hey guys! I'm ready for my close-up!"

Ron Dudley posted some great pictures of Red-tailed Hawks on his Feathered Photography blog.

Today's 'Find Momo' is pretty good. It's amazing how you can just overlook this dog!

NX's Location, One Alcoa Osprey Fledged Today

NX has checked in. She is still exploring the Potomac River.

When I first checked in at the Alcoa Osprey nest today, surprise! Only two chicks in the nest. The oldest fledged earlier today. Here we see Mom with two chicks gathered around her because it's chow time:

At one point, a wing enters the frame from the left. The cam operator widens the view and we can see the fledgling perched on a 'branch' just outside the nest. The siblings that have not fledged thought it was fascinating:

The fledgling took advantage of having all that space to itself by doing some stretching:

Then it tried to get everyone's attention:

Did some heavy wingercizing:

And posed like this for a moment:

And I do mean moment. I had to look away for a moment and when I looked back I could see him in the background circling in a clockwise manner. I just had time to hit the s'cap and caught him in the upper right hand corner:

And then he was back in the nest. Yes, it would have been easy to just hop over into the nest, but the big circling flight is much more fun!

Then Mom and the fledgling took off together. The two that were left in the nest didn't seem to know what to make of this. It was kind of comical watching them:

But soon enough, they both came back together. The fledgling came in first and here Mom is just landing on the 'branch':

I think this is the fledgling getting some air:

And then getting some big air, with Mom craning around to watch. This is not a landing or a take-off. This is just wingercizing:

This is the biggest air during wingercizing that I've ever seen at this nest. Ospreys are great at hovering, and that's what he was doing. Look at how intently Mom is watching...

Remember the fledgling was on the 'branch' while Mom was feeding the two siblings? You can see Mom's got a pretty good crop and the chick on either side have pretty good crops. The middle chick is the fledgling, not much of a crop. And he was crying and crying because he was hungry. This is about the time I had to stop watching. But I'm sure he got fed...

I'll finish this post with this nice family picture. Osprey spend so much time preening, it's hard to get them all looking up. As you can see, I've got one of them looking down here, but I still like this s'cap. I took about 50 s'caps today just to try to get the 'moments' without someone's head buried under a wing preening... And trying to avoid having any faces at the smudgy spots on the cam...

NX's Location, Dancing Bluebird on Feathered Photography, Screen Captures of the Alcoa Osprey Nest

NX checked in today. She is about a mile south of her last check in.

Ron Dudley posted some great pictures of a dancing bluebird on his Feathered Photography blog.

Here's the rest of the Osprey s'caps from yesterday:

I think that growing requires a lot of stretching. This was a really big stretch:

Very often, they will stretch one wing, then fold it back in. These two were laying side by side, and they both did one of these stretches at different times. Just for fun, I combined the two s'caps into one picture:

This youngster did a big stretch that included its leg. After tucking its wing back in, it never did tuck its leg back in. Look at the size of that talon! I wonder if taking up this much room in the nest is like hogging the covers?

I took this s'cap to show the difference in the adult and chick's eye color. The chick's eye color is more orange (on the left) than the yellow of the adult's eye (on the right):

This is a good time to see a lot of wingercizing. This chick got some serious air:

The chicks are also careful to back up to the edge of the nest when they need to poop. This might look like a stretch, but you can tell it's going to be poop when they back up to the edge of the nest first. If you're still not sure which it is, wait to see if the poop flies:

Different chick, same activity. And yes, that's a lot of poop -- not part of the logo or spillway:

All this activity is hard on a nest. A lot of the sticks end up going over the side. The parents bring in new sticks every day:

Here's a s'cap from 5/10, for comparison:

NX and Camellia Locations, Piano Playing Singing Dog, Find Momo, Ferruginous Hawk Nest on Feathered Photography, Alcoa Osprey S'caps

NX has checked in. She hasn't gone far, still hanging out south of Quantico.

Camellia checked in. He's in Virginia Beach, but Reese speculates that he's heading back to the Pocaty River.

My friend Candy sent me a link to this piano playing and singing dog. I love it! So, I thought I'd share it.

I love the 6/14 find Momo. So cute! Check it out!

Ron Dudley posted some pictures from another Ferruginous Hawk nest with chicks. These pictures are amazing!

I spent some time today watching the Alcoa Osprey nest. I took way too many s'caps (screen captures) to put in one post. I'll put some here today and put some in tomorrow's post. It was an interesting day. I'm not sure what was happening off-camera, but the adult at the nest seemed agitated -- looking around, calling, ducking, and taking short flights.

In this picture, Mom is on full alert. She is hunkered down, calling, and her wings are a bit flared. She was neither landing nor taking off. I think she was trying to appear larger and more intimidating to scare off whatever threat she perceived:

Have you ever seen a group of cats who are all watching the same thing? Their heads and eyes all track simultaneously. That's what happened today as something flew around the nest:

And it happened more than once. Here all of the chicks are calling:

And here's Mom landing back in the nest after one of her short flights:

Dad brought in a fish at one point:

Dad never stays in the nest for long. Here, I caught him flying away:

After feeding her chicks, I was able to get a s'cap of Mom feaking. Notice the chicks watching her -- learning how to be Osprey. And sure enough, shortly after this s'cap was taken, one of the chicks did some vigorous feaking.

Mom kept a close watch as her chicks settled down for a nap:

It was an interesting day to watch this nest. I'll post the rest of the s'caps from today in tomorrow's post...

Alcoa Osprey Nest

I spent some time watching the Alcoa Osprey nest the other day and got these s'caps. (I was going to post these yesterday, but the storms knocked out my power and it didn't come back on until today while I was at work...)

First, we've got the family just hanging out. Mom and the three chicks:

It was a nice day to do some wingercizing:

Then Dad came in with a fish. That nest is super-crowded when all five Osprey are at home. Notice that everyone is paying attention to the food:

Osprey chicks learn how to be Osprey by watching their parents. Look at how closely they all watch as Dad flies away. This was the only time I was able to get them all to face the camera and say "cheese":

Shading the siblings? No, just more wingercizing:

Then Dad returns with another stick for the nest:

Now to find the perfect spot for this stick, even though the nest is crowded:

The chick on the right gets bonked in the head with the stick:

Eventually, the adult finds the perfect spot for the stick. Unfortunately, it's still laying on top of the chick on the right:

The chick decides to take matters into its own hands since the adult is satisfied with the stick placement and has moved on to other things:

"I've almost got it!"

"I give up. Maybe if I just lay here..."

"Nope. I don't like that. I'll just stand up and shake it off!" Great plan. You can see the stick hanging off the right side of the nest:

It was a hot day. This is the last view I saw of this nest that day -- The chicks all tried to get some relief from the sun by crowding into the shade created by Mom: