Bay Photos by Donna

Temps have been more comfortable this past week, although still hot.  And our osprey family continue to delight with just their everyday life activities.  While on the nest whether they are sitting alone quietly, or eating a brought fish, or someone approaches on the walkway, or an intruder appears in the sky, their strength and resilience proves to be fascinating.

One of the chicks was trying to enjoy a fish and yet didn’t seem comfortable.  He quickly took flight with his dinner.

Another evening, a chick was preparing to eat a really small fish.  I didn’t see the chick land on the nest or how the fish arrived, but I’m wondering if it was a catch of his one.  I haven’t seen either parent bring a fish so small.

It’s hard to say exactly when they begin to fish for themselves, each one is different, but maybe we’re seeing one of the their first successes!  It is a fact that the parents will begin to feed the chicks less often to encourage their instinct to fish and feed themselves.  A couple evenings ago, a chick was quite loud calling and looking over to the marker where a parent and the other chick were resting.  That chick was also crying loudly, yet the parent just sat there and continued to ignore either one of them.   Maybe the parent was trying to encourage that instinct?

Finally here’s another interesting photo of a chick standing on one leg.  I’ve seen all of them do this at times while resting.  The first time I remember seeing Olivia doing this last year for a real long time and I actually worried she had lost her leg.   An adult osprey weighs approximately four pounds but I guess that little weight tires their legs too!