Island Creek Ospreys

Tag: Natasha

  • 2021-4: Pride and Prejudice

    2021-4: Pride and Prejudice

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

    2021 – What I Knew Then, What I Know Now – 2026

    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 occasionally from the upstream neighbors, their nest also attracting intruders. These neighbors 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 three vastly 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

    Natasha, between Big Daddy (L) and Big Mama, takes a breather after laying another egg in another Osprey pair’s nest.

    2021-What I Knew Then, What I Know Now-2026

    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. Wanton. [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 my awfulness of practicing voyeurism on trauma. This gal 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, even by me,  that the bird I would come to call Ethel possessed the nest to later be designated Nest 1. And before Natasha had a chance to push an egg out, Ethel pushed her off it.

    Natasha flapped her way 50 feet to Nest 2, where the accommodating male and less accommodating female backed away. Natasha set upon the platform’s lower edge, closest to Nest 1, and laid her egg. Then the resident Nest 2 female pushed her off that nest, too.

    Three days later—right on Osprey-laying-target, Natasha landed in the oldest nest, occupied for many years by the Bigs. These two remain the biggest, respectively, male and female Ospreys I’ve ever seen. Big Daddy, big and blustering, was easy naming.

    Big Mama seemed a stretch, until both Bigs let Natasha labor, lay her egg, and this older, aggressive female let Natasha incubate alongside her and rest after her ordeal.

    I appended “Mama” because of that kindness. Plus, given her less than traditional mothering behavior, there was a tad of sarcasm.

    Big Mama was aggressive and hair-triggered when repelling intruders from her nest. Much more in character, once Natasha had rested sufficiently to be standing, Big Mama threw her off.

    As soon as Natasha quit circling, Big Mama tidied up and settled into incubating, possibly the Cuckoo egg as well.

    I have no further record of Natasha.

    Big Mama settles in after Natasha quits circling, enhances the nest bowl with a twig and sets to incubating.

     

    Previous Episode 2021.2: An Exotic Girlfriend

    Upcoming Episode 2021.4: Pride and Prejudice