Where Did Our Osprey Family Go?
We thought it couldn’t get any hotter but it has. So hot we haven’t seen much of our osprey family on the nest. But I have located one of their roosts, a nice shady tree over at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center. With the haze and the distance, I haven’t been able to get a clear photo but I’ve watched them a few times with binoculars. Of course, they still fave Lippincott’s channel marker. Yesterday, a seagull was perched on the marker, and one of the osprey flew from the trees and chased him off and took his place. Yes, that marker is theirs!
Late this afternoon, we had a wicked thunderstorm. After it cleared, I found a chick on the marker and a parent brought him a fish to eat there. So we know two of our family are okay! The osprey families at Blackwater Rufuge and at the Chestertown cam both made through the storms fine too. It is amazing how resilient the osprey are.
A few days ago, I did see one of the chicks come to the nest and dad Ollie followed soon after with a fish. Ollie did as usual, he landed, released the headless fish, and took off. As our chick enjoyed his meal, someone approached on the walk-way which caused the chick to get quite vocal. He then took flight with his dinner and flew towards me. He came to my left and then flew in front of me, all the while keeping his eye on me. He was definitely checking me out….
The weather reports are calling for lower temps and lower humidity for the coming week so maybe our osprey family will be seen more around and on their nest. Since there may be less sightings to photograph, I will be starting up a photo gallery page of more osprey photos from the past as well as other waterfowl and wildlife favorites of mine. Here’s a cormorant roosting quietly on the piling at Mears Point Marina the other night. Sometimes called diving ducks, they get up to 32″ tall and feed on fish.
