Island Creek Ospreys

Category: Ospreys

  • 2021-4: Pride and Prejudice

    2021-4: Pride and Prejudice

    Mr. Bennet is landing on Nest 2, probably aiming for Mrs. Bennet’s back.

    The accommodating and unaccommodating Osprey pair of Nest 2 will be named Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, after their chicks hatch. The chicks will look like big, healthy girls when they fledge. But when Natasha dropped in, Mrs. Bennet hadn’t yet laid an egg, though she was ready. She stuck close to the nest except to dine at a nearby piling, within sight of the nest. She ignored the cuckoo egg.

    Not Mr. B. When he next delivered a fish to the nest, he brooded Natalie’s egg while Mrs. B dined on her piling.

    He carried on like this until Mrs. B began laying eggs a few days later, in the bowl she and Mr. B had carefully prepared, up and apart from the lip where Natasha had laid. Mr. Bennet’s attention transferred quickly to the eggs of the future Misses Bennet.

    Incubation can be pretty dull, viewed at the lip of the nest. The first surmise of a living hatch is an adult with food in its beak leaning into the nest bowl. Counting begins when heads start bobbing, which depending upon nest construction, takes at least a week.

    Big Mama and Big Daddy

    Only one head ever popped above the lip of the Bigs’ nest in 2021. Anyone’s guess the parentage. The Bigs had begun the season on bad terms, Big Daddy a month late, not showing until well into April while Big Mama had battled daily intruders.

    Mrs. Perfect

    Some assistance came the upstream neighbors, their nest also attracting intruders. These neighbor to the north were the exception to my 2021 naming. The Captain and I had years before named this pair the Perfects, practically the day they arrived. We named them after family, whose lawn we’d long commented upon.

    In 2021, the experienced Perfects, the novice Bennets, and a beleaguered Ethel fledged two chicks apiece from their considerably different nests.

    Image at top of post is taken from this photo by author via iPhone attached to a middling telescope. Copilot “sharpened”the image used at the top.

    Previous Episode: 2021.3: Birds Labor Too 

    Upcoming Episode:  2021.5  Mr. Bennet Was My Favorite

  • 2021-3: Birds Labor Too

    2021-3: Birds Labor Too

    A bird about to lay an egg resembles most animals going through labor, intensely focused on the pressing situation, jumpy even in the comfort of her own nest. The subsequent melodrama of laying an egg, for the first time, without a nest, looked pitiable and shameful. [Refer to anthropomorphism 2021-1.] She needed a notorious name: Natasha.

    I conjured Natasha Fatale, spy of the Moose and Squirrel show, something edgy to offset the awfulness of practicing voyeurism on victimization. Because that’s what Natasha looked like. Clearly, no one had passed along the news to keep your tail down until you had a nest. And if they had, well, then she deserved a spicy name.

     

    Natasha’s debacle began at dusk the third week of April when Ethel alerted the neighborhood of disaster. Natasha had landed in Nest 1, Ethel’s nest, ready to lay an egg.

    Ethel hadn’t yet been named nor had the nests been numbered, but well prior to all of that, it was universally known that the bird to be named Ethel possessed the nest to be designated Nest 1. And before Natasha could push, Ethel pushed her off it.

    Natasha flapped the 50 feet to Nest 2, where the accommodating male and less accommodating female backed away. Natasha laid her egg right at the platform’s lower edge, closest to Nest 1, then the resident Nest 2 female pushed Natasha  off.

    Three days later—right on the money in the standard Osprey-egg-laying schedule—Natasha landed in the oldest nest, occupied for many years by the Bigs, who remain the biggest, respectively,  male and female Ospreys I’ve ever seen. They let Natasha labor, lay her egg, and briefly incubate along side Big Mama. I appended Mama because of that kindness shown a younger female. Not much of a hop to cast the big, blustering male Big Daddy when, after Natasha’s brief rest, he tossed her off that nest too.

    I have no further record of Natasha.

    Previous Episode 2021.2: An Exotic Girlfriend

    Upcoming Episode 2021.4: Pride and Prejudice 

     

  • 2021-2: An Exotic Girlfriend

    2021-2: An Exotic Girlfriend

    Note: It’s all about the nest with Ospreys. Male Ospreys select the site, maybe gussy it up a bit with some sticks, then keen and circle above, advertising. The males plunge toward the nest, swooping out of the dive as near as their nerves allow. At first, in courtship, the dive is to convince a female to lay her eggs there. Once she’s in the nest, dives accompany fish deliveries and announce his prowess as far as his keening can reach. If matters progress to fledging chicks, this nest will imprint an exact address on both of them. They’ll meet back up next spring and the next and the next. Nest Site Fidelity, according to ornithologists, is a bigger deal to Osprey pairs than one another.

    Nest Site Fidelity might define thereafter, but partnering proved the Gang of Six’s winning strategy. The two prevailing males fought for their claim to a platform alongside a female, also staking her claim.

    Mark-6 had a partner. She appeared less aggressive than the two females claiming a nest platform. But there just might not have been room for her. Mark-6’s nest consisted of an occasional bundle of sticks poking from the top of the triangle. His girlfriend gamely visited, but preferred Marker 7 across the creek from the rest of the gang. She perched atop the center piling between the square, odd-numbered marker.

    She was small for a female, compact like Mark 6. And also like him, a beauty. Plus her markings differed from the others, more dark feathers about her face, down her breast and stomach. She looked exotic next to the familiar, whiter faced, lacey necklaced females of Island Creek, including Mrs. Perfect and Mrs. Bennet. Ethel had a more pronounced bib than her neighbors, but it barely feathered her crop, next to nothing compared with the thick, dark feathering of the exotic girlfriend.

    Mating on Marker 6 proved tricky, but possible, unlike nest building or transferring fish, which had a significantly greater failure rate on Marker 6 than atop Marker 7. So they mated there as well. She had even brought a few sticks to the square marker. But Mark-6 did not relocate. So, the inevitable occurred. In late April, the exotic little female went into labor without a nest.

    Previous Episode 2021.1 A Telescope, Anthropomorphism 

    Upcoming Episode 2021.3: Birds Labor Too  

    this photo by author; photo above “sharpened” by Copilot AI
  • 2021-1: A Telescope, Anthropomorphism

    2021-1: A Telescope, Anthropomorphism

    In 2021 I acquired a telescope sufficient to discern particulars above the lips of the four nests out front. The 10 Osprey I’d erratically watched in 2020 returned and became distinct. So, I named them.

    I named them not only with anthropomorphic intent, but ignoble intent, matching an Osprey’s observed behavior to a reductive human stereotype. Speaking for myself, rude nicknames proved a helpful identification nomenclature.

    Note: Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. The inverse is the attribution of non-human entities’ traits, emotions, or intentions to humans, like boxers’ nicknames such as Pitbull and Tiger, according to a Stack Exchange Inc. contribution licensed by CC BY-SA. Then another contribution speculated inverse anthropomorphism was merely a mirror effect of our own anthropomorphism.

    The telescope confirmed three males and three females returned as the Gang of Six. Skirmishes resumed immediately for a nest site and perhaps also for a mate. But, really, I had no idea. Permanent pairing would seem to have gelled, or seemed near gelling, more or less, then everyone switched around. I second-guessed every identification, a rank amateur at birdwatching, at focusing, at all of this. And yet, unskilled, untrained, and undisciplined, even I saw that these birds were not monogamous.

    A good-looking banty male was exceptionally popular. He wound up odd-male out when the partnering and nest sorting did gel. He hightailed over to Intercoastal Marker 6, same side of the channel. centered in the two nests’ viewshed.

    He perched majestically at the tip of a red triangle among the Red-Right-Returning fame. He dropped sticks down its 60-degree slope all season. He retrieved some he saw fall overboard, before they waterlogged. He dropped more sticks than all four of the gang members dropped on their two starter nests combined.

    He became Mark-6, as a bit of mockery. Later, learning more about birds’ individualized reproductive controls, I suspected Mark-6’s building strategy a successful opt-out from fatherhood, which must be thoroughly exhausting. It left time for Mark-6 to visit females on their nests as well as bring fish to a girlfriend of his own.

    His girlfriend could be spotted on Marker 6, making a go of what could be done at the tip of a triangle. And she also spent time on Marker 7, a square marker and stabler. Who knows where else they mated, but the outcome presented a notorious name for Mark-6’s girlfriend. It really wasn’t female shaming. She simply needed something powerful working on her side.

    Previous episode: 2020.3:  Feeding Osprey

    Next episode: 2021.2  An Exotic Girlfriend 

     

  • 2020-3:  Feeding Ospreys

    2020-3:  Feeding Ospreys

    Photo by Paul Leibe, 1991, first Osprey nest installed in Island Creek in front of the island house.

    The returning Osprey grown-ups in nests out front of the island house performed their traditional seasonal tasks in my peripheral vision, beyond practical reach of the oystering binoculars. I wasn’t taking notes, but mentions of oddities made it to the dinner table.

    Note: The oystering binoculars were too large and heavy to hold steadily, let alone simultaneously focus. The Captain had used them to locate bird activity above water which suggests fish below, which might portend oysters beneath the fish. They were also used in the ancient waterman tradition of spying on the catches of other working boats. Powerful.

    The two nests out front traditionally fledged three chicks. The oldest nest had fledged four chicks a few times over its three occupied decades. The younger nest probably 15 years old by 2020, had fledged four at least once. The Captain insists the oldest nest fledged five one year, with his assistance.

    He’d rigged the top of a now-forbidden Styrofoam cooler to a line threaded through a pulley running from the shore to the nest’s piling. When the workboats landed their various catches at the dock, the Captain took junk fish, the waste from filets, even left over bait if it was fresh enough, and hauled it out to the piling.

    Once, the Captain tells, the Osprey dropped a stick on the head of a Seagull trying to steal the fish off the lid. The Seagull flew, the Osprey retrieved the fish and fed it to the kids.

    I didn’t think to take notes. This was dinner conversation. Like seeing flocks and flocks and flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds above their undulating shadow gliding along the tips of the marsh grass. We noted when they’d dwindled to only flocks. We noticed the Purple Martins return to the little white buckets the Captain strung along the pier, but failed for a long time to notice they no longer provoked crack-of-dawn noise complaints. We noticed the Ospreys return, laughed at their funny fledglings learning to fly, discussed the population increase.

    Around 2015 a Bald Eagle, appearing uninjured but unable to fly, placidly waited in the yard as I called for assistance. I had to convince the intake ranger I could discern an Eagle from an Osprey for the dispatch of qualified help, which shortly arrived. Due to over-population in the region, injured Osprey no longer warranted official rescue.

    Note: Ospreys are going on 2 or 3 years old when they first attempt a return to their imprinted natal region. Ornithologist say only one in three makes it. Survival rate improves significantly after that.

     The jumped-up six-pack at the mouth of Island Creek represented the top third of the banner fledgling classes of 2017 and 2018. They’d contributed nothing to the 2020 fledge class. But in 2021, they will out fledge the older two nests, including a bully who will terrorize Osprey nests up and down Island Creek.

    The Bully came from Ethel’s nest. She has the best stories.

  • 2020-2: Rampaging Adolescent Ospreys

    2020-2: Rampaging Adolescent Ospreys

    The new Osprey nest platforms are down stream from the peeler crabs beneath the red roof.  The green Intracoastal Waterway Marker 3 at the edge of the small beach in the background denotes the mouth of Island Creek. The red, triangular markers heading upstream are 4, 6, and 8.

    St. George Island legend pegs St. Patrick’s as the day Ospreys return. In 2020 that coincided with the pandemic. My office moved to the second-story of the island house overlooking the coveted new platforms. Hard to miss the commotion. I dug out a middling pair of binoculars, climbed to the storage loft above the oyster house, and dragged a stool onto the landing. I went a second morning merely to prove to myself I could. I didn’t bother with the binoculars.

    The Gang of Six blew past that landing exactly like the rampaging, hormone fueled, adolescent hawks they were. Fast and huge. They turned sideways—in flight!—to accommodate the sloping barn roof. They cut corners so tightly the building might as well not have been there at all. I grasped the railing, off balanced. Their wings were huge! Huge! Feathers filled the view. An unbelievable number of feathers, layers and layers. Millions of feathers. The spread wings were four times my breadth. I heard, “whoosh” and felt a rush. It happened again, so fast, another chasing the first, Star Wars on the wing. “Whoosh.” And all those feathers.

    After that I balanced the Captain’s powerful oystering binoculars atop piles of boxes and thick books in my pandemic office and spent half an hour setting the focus on the new platforms.

    Map below so totally not to scale!

     

    An Osprey nest proved perfect for lazy birdwatching. Everything interesting that birds do, Ospreys do at their nests—courtship, nest building, mating, dining on live prey that is always fish, so not as gross as an eagle’s nest, eagles eat anything and the kids sleep beside the leftovers.

    Then Ospreys produce a 60-day family drama from feeding to fledging followed by prolonged survival training—flying and fishing—for their first migration. Nearly all of this, right there on the nest, binoculars in place and focused.

     

  • 2020-1: Ethel Is Not My Favorite Osprey

    2020-1: Ethel Is Not My Favorite Osprey

    Ethel is not my favorite of the 10 Ospreys I’ve named but she has the best stories. And, also, she’s the only one who returned this spring.

    She first arrived in 2020 with a gang of five other first-returners, invincible 2- and 3-year-olds, wildly alive, convinced they’d nailed their natal territory and raring to stake a claim.

    The other four Ospreys, two long-time pairs, returned as usual to the two nests atop pilings in Island Creek about 100 feet offshore from the island house. The oldest nest has been occupied since 1990, the year the island house was built about 100-feet onshore.

    Note: Although banded Osplets have returned to the exact neighborhood of their hatch, ornithologists describe the Natal Nest Imprint as less a street address than a region, for example, “Chesapeake.”

     Regardless, the juiced up six-pack of youngsters arrived at Island Creek had two very specific addresses in their sights. The Captain had recently installed two more platforms atop pilings the other side of the oyster house pier, about 300 feet downstream from the oldest nest.

    In 2020, Osprey real estate on St. George Island was scarce as hen’s teeth, as the Captain described the situation. Territorial battles could become bloody. New Ospreys sought to appropriate nests from pairs who’d occupied their nest for years. Sometimes a newcomer replaced a mate who hadn’t returned and occasionally replaced one who had.

    The gang of novices skirmished endlessly for possession of the two new platforms. Dive-bombing, knocking, and shoving one another off the platforms. Sometimes a perched Osprey leapt into the air, talons up and wings spread, and repulsed an onslaught. It was marvelous. They can fly backwards. Their wings can tread air like a gargantuan hummingbird.

    The youngsters played aerobatic tag at full-speed, up and down the creek and weaving through copses of pine trees. They disappeared between the trunks like shadows. Squeeing, squeeing, squeeing, always squeeing. One, maybe two, and sometimes even three would burst from the treetops, race from Island Creek into the river’s horizon. There they disappeared into light.

    They also mated, or tried to, or tried to disrupt others from trying to. None of them built anything approximating a nest that year. If one became industrious enough to bring a stick to one of the platforms, another stole it.

    Next: 2020-2: Rampaging Adolescent Ospreys

     

    Map below so totally not to scale!