Ollie and The Chicks Are Still Around

It’s been a week of seeing only short visits from our osprey dad and chicks. With their migration journey fast approaching, our chicks are most likely out exploring beyond their normal flight areas as they feel the tug that calls them south. With the nest becoming less of a magnet to them, we are having a lot of seagulls stopping to search for any fish morsels. Ollie is still around being the dutiful dad, I spotted him twice this past week dropping a fish to an awaiting chick. Here’s a photo of him flying by me after one fish drop-off.

A third time was quite different and I still find it a bit odd. I had been enjoying the view although our nest was empty. I had taken a 10 minute break and when I returned, Ollie was on the nest along with a paper bag (from McDonald’s?). He wasn’t messing with the bag, just looking around and then took flight. His take-off ‘blew’ the bag off the nest and into the water where it sank after becoming saturated. The other plastic items were in the nest earlier. Did he bring it for nesting material?

Our chicks have learned fast to be the fierce raptor that is their species. These past couple weeks they vocalized at everything in their view that had eyes and movement. If you got too close, they screamed louder and took on a combative stance. The osprey chicks over on the Kent Narrows marker did a lot of soaring over our nest one afternoon and at one time tried to land on our nest, here’s a photo sequence. Our chick does a victory dance at the end!

Not only are the seagulls visiting the nest, I’ve seen blue heron a couple times fishing down on the rocks’ edge, not too far from the nest. They wouldn’t get that opportunity if our osprey were present. My July 13th post recalls one such dog-fight between Olivia and a blue heron that ventured too close to her liking. Here’s a visiting blue heron from this week. He didn’t catch a fish but he was pretty to watch!