Clutch Size
1–4 eggs

Incubation Period
36–42 days……………Mark your calender.

Egg Description
Cream to pinkish cinnamon; wreathed and spotted with reddish brown.

Incubation begins when the first egg is laid. Subsequent eggs are laid one to three days apart; clutches have 2-4 eggs. The female usually takes on most of the responsibility of incubation, seldom leaving except to feed. When she does leave the nest, the male takes over incubation until her return.

Female Ospreys do most of the sitting, depending on males to provide food. However, some males handle up to 30% of incubation time.

Osprey eggs do not hatch all at once. Rather, the first chick emerges up to five days before the last one. This arrangement favors the first hatched chicks which permits them to thrive in years of poor food supplies. In these years, the latter hatched chicks perish.