Winter Has Arrived
Our cold winter has arrived, along with the influx of migrating waterfowl of all kinds. Within sight of our nest, we have had geese, buffleheads, loons, redheads, tundra swans, canvasback, ruddy ducks, and more swimming and searching our calm shallow waters for food and shelter. In addition, our nest continues to be a regular perch for a pair of eagles that nest over at CBEC. What a beautiful, patriotic sight they are! Here’s a sequence of photos of one of them fluffing his feathers in the cold brisk wind.
At least he looked warmer all puffed up that cold day! 🙂 Another day, I took more photos of one of the pair again on our nest.
A week ago, the high winds and low temperatures created beautiful ice mounds on our rocks at the base of the nest. I took the following photo December 16, the morning of our first snow dusting that day.
By late afternoon, we had about 1-2 inches of snow in the area….and on our osprey nest.
The next morning’s sunrise shined crisp and cold on our osprey nest.
Finally, a photo of one of the visiting geese at the base of the nest. He was the ‘looker’ and caught me watching them. He didn’t seem to mind!
The holidays are upon us! I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday season and best wishes for a Happy New Year!
Our Off-Season Osprey Nest Visitors 2010
Our Oyster Cove community osprey nest occasionally becomes a resting place for other birds when our osprey family migrates for the winter. I thought it would be interesting to show those that I have captured to date. Some are not the best quality but you can see ‘who’ it was that visited! You can click on the photo thumbnail to enlarge it for better viewing.
As Fall Turns Into Winter, Our Nest Area Still Has Activity!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! My last post was another late season osprey sighting but there haven’t been any since. No longer are we experiencing the warm days as we settle into the late fall season. The temperatures have fallen and the visiting migrating birds are coming in daily as they search for food and shelter. The base of our osprey nest has now become a feeding area for other waterfowl. Of course, blue heron seem to love and frequent it almost daily around low tide. This one was fun to capture as he strutted around because he knew another blue heron was sitting 20 feet away.
The following photo is of the second blue heron he was strutting for! I’m not exactly sure whether the first blue heron was behaving this way to impress the second one or trying to let the second one know that he considered the base of the nest his territory. Whatever the reason, the second heron flew away after I photographed him.
Our other visitors at the base of the nest have included seagulls, mallards, wood ducks, geese, buffleheads, and more! Here’s some of them.
No matter the season, our area is a haven for various waterfowl, isn’t it great?!! As I’ve mentioned before, eagles are frequent as well now, I’ve recently watched two pair in our area as they bond and mate in the air and on the channel markers, as well as on a hunt for food. The small ducks get quite nervous when the eagles are flying around, it is not uncommon to watch a duck get snatched who’s just not quick enough to get away from a hungry eagle. (I saw it happen again this morning!)
Don’t forget to check out the Friends of Blackwater’s NWR osprey and eagle cams, they are both active with Blackwater’s pair of eagles visiting both nests and showing progress of adding to their own nest for their upcoming January/February breeding season. In addition, I am in the midst of creating some photo galleries of my better photos from other areas on the Chesapeake Bay, I hope to have loaded real soon!
Another Osprey Sighting – Updated!
There was another osprey sighted in our area this past Sunday! I spotted this one resting about 8:30 a.m. in a tree over at CBEC. At such a distance and being perched in the shade from the rising sun, my enlarged shots are not that great but you can see him! I watched him for a half hour with binoculars when he then flew over to Marshy Creek and dove twice, being successful the second time. He then flew away in the distance with his dinner. I haven’t seen him since. I could not tell if this is the same one from my November 6th sighting, he never flew over close enough for me to get a look at his tail to see if he was missing a couple of feathers. Nor could I get a close enough look to see if it was an adult or juvenile osprey. Here are three photos.
Hopefully this one gets his inner gps jump-started real soon to make it to the tropics!
UPDATE! I posted the above last night. While doing my morning binocular scanning around the area about 8:00 a.m., I spotted an osprey again perched over at CBEC in a different tree. I imagine he’s probably the same osprey from Sunday. Figuring I could keep checking back on him, 15 minutes later he was gone and no where in my sight. Can’t count on nature working around our schedules! LOL Just now I checked again and there’s an eagle perched about 50-60 feet to the left of the osprey’s perch. Here’s my not-so-great photos from this morning, at least the morning’s sun brighten them!
Still couldn’t make out if this is an adult or juvenile. Now if only he/she would spend some time on our osprey nest WHILE I’m here and watching….. Wishful thinking though I would be in photo heaven taking shots while enjoying this late-season osprey!
Enjoy your day!
A Migrating Osprey In Our Area
What a wonderful osprey treat! This past Tuesday late afternoon I sighted a migrating juvenile osprey in our area, searching for a fish for dinner. He flew around our osprey nest, even swooping a couple of times at a blue heron at the base of the nest who was also searching for dinner. The blue heron was unfazed, so the osprey continued some aerial searching. He started several dives but cut them short, not immersing in the water. You will notice in some of the photos that this osprey is missing a tail feather or two, but otherwise seemed healthy. After about 30 minutes with no success, he flew away to search another area. I felt lucky to catch his sighting in our area so late in the season!
If that wasn’t a surprise, you’re not going to believe this! I was preparing the set-up to blog about our visiting osprey this morning when I saw a bird fly close by the window where I was sitting. I jumped up with camera in hand and caught sighting of the same osprey with the missing tail feather(s) from Tuesday. I couldn’t believe it!
This time he did three dives, hitting the water with tremendous force each time. An osprey can reach 80 mph before hitting the water! The third time he was successful with a nice size fish. Here is a sequence of the last dive. Due to his speed, the first photos are out of focus (I had a hard time keeping the camera on him!) but it showed his ‘form’ before plunging into the water. Also notice the unfortunate fish is trying to wiggle lose from the osprey’s tight grip.
And off he went to enjoy a well-earned dinner! The following photo shows something we don’t normally see during our osprey season, geese in the same scene as an osprey!
Those of you in the community, keep your eye out for him, you might catch more sightings! Hopefully, he doesn’t suddenly high-tail it south too quickly with storm Tomas still brewing. The numerous, nonstop hurricanes and tropical storms in the Caribbean these past two months have proven unforgiving to the many migrations occurring. I am still following Univ. of North Carolina Professor Rob Bierregaard’s migrating ospreys with the gps transmitters, and unfortunately several succumbed within some of these storms. His link is to the right in my Cool Links list for up-to-date status of those still enroute and those that have reached South America successful for the winter.
Finally, here’s a couple of photos of the blue heron who was unfazed by the visiting osprey.
This blue heron has been an early morning and early evening visitor for about a week now at low tide, makes for better fish grabbing! He’s been a delight to watch with binoculars. And if any of you are within sight of CBEC with binoculars or telescope, one or two eagles perch over there often, another bird that is magnificent to watch. Keep in touch, I will continue to blog more photos of the wildlife in our area during the winter season. Take care!
Oliver & Olivia – September 2010
September brought an end to our wonderful season with Oliver, Olivia and their two chicks. Just Dad Ollie and one chick remained the first week or so before they too migrated south. My last sighting of our last chick was on September 5, watching it leave the nest and fly over to Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center, perching in one of the trees mom Olivia did. I wasn’t camera-ready until photographing it at CBEC. Here are the last few good photos of our last chick to enjoy until next season!
Oliver & Olivia – August 2010
Here are August’s photos of our osprey family. Early on, there became less and less activity at the nest as both chicks stayed away for longer periods of time, exploring their region and mastering flight. Dad Oliver continued to supply fish to insure the chicks were fed, but his deliveries became less infrequent as the chicks also learned to fish on their own. Mom Olivia successfully accomplished her responsibility of nurturing and protecting her babies until they fledged; and she departed our area by the middle of the month for her 3,000+ mile migration to South America. It then became Ollie’s responsibility to keep an eye on their chicks until their instinct to migrate kicked in. Again, there are some sequence photos of some of their activity. Enjoy!
Oliver & Olivia – July 2010
Our osprey family’s photos for July show how much our two chicks learned in such a short time with a lot of flight, more growth, eating, and trying to stay cool in the extreme heat we had. By July 7th and 8th, each chick had fledged and began quick flights and returns while they mastered flying. They also started learning to dive into and lift out of the water, including just floating around and cooling off. You can just tell they are enjoying themselves! There was so much activity this month, it was very difficult to narrow down the number of photos to show you, many are sequence shots. I hope I didn’t overdo your viewing!
Oliver & Olivia – June 2010
Photos from the month of June show amazing growth with the two chicks. Their curiosity of the outside world increased quickly with the growth, now being able to see out and around from their nest. Oliver continued with nest maintenance and dinner deliveries while Olivia maintained feedings and nest protection. By the middle of June, wing stretching became the norm while the chicks tried to balance their awkwardness. In addition, they began learning to preen as their pin feathers grew out and replaced their down. By the end of the June, it is evident the chicks have changed in size and look and are almost ready for their first flight!
Technical Problem…
For those of you who subscribe to my blog (thank you!), last night I posted June and July’s 2010 photos of our osprey family and had some technical issues. I realize a subscription post update emailed out last night for “July” but not “June’s”. When I tried to ‘fix’, I lost both month’s galleries! 😦 I will work on my technical issue tonight and hopefully get them both back in place. Thank you for your patience!
