Osprey Tales

Love Birds
 
O & H

Ospreys are monogamous. Pairs repeatedly return to the same nest site, and often remain together for many years, sometimes, for life. Older individuals and, in particular, pairs that have bred together previously, tend to be more successful than newly formed pairs.

Males return to the breeding grounds before females and check out the nest site. Some males perform aerial displays even before females arrive. The displays, which peak after the female arrives, allow the male to “mark” his territory and to solicit the attention of a female. So called “sky dances” usually begin and end at the nest site, and while performing the display, males usually carry a fish or nesting material and call repeatedly a “creee” or “creeek creee.”

“Sky dances” incorporate undulating flights, which sometimes reach heights of 300 feet or more. At the top of each undulation, males typically hover briefly with their legs dangling and their tails fanned, and then dive downward with their wings drawn in. They may repeat this sequence several times. During courtship, males also provide food for their mates, follow them closely, and chase away other males.

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“I couldn’t help but laugh. I’ve never seen the Doctor so animated,” thought Harriett.
Ozzie and I were building the foundation for our new nest.

In a moment of spontaneity, Ozzie leaped off the platform and flew straight up, high over our new home.

The Doctor look surprised, but then suddenly he realized Ozzie was about to Sky Dance.
And what a spectacular display did Ozzie perform. He’s always been good at Sky Dancing, but today he provided a magnificent show.

The Doctor jumped up from his rocker. He began yelling for the female H. sapien with whom he lives.
“Come Female H. sapien! Come now!” The Doctor cried anxiously.
“Come now!  You’re going to miss it!” The Doctor yelled.

The Doctor was overly excited.  Ozzie put on a spectacular display of his aerobatic skills. Later he told me he was just bearing witness to his love for me. It was a masterful Sky Dance.

You know, I really love that bird.

Anyway, I was trying to keep one eye on Ozzie and the other on the Doctor.

The Doctor was hooting and hollering, and jumping up and down, and calling for the female H. sapien in such a way I could not help but laugh.

It has really been a wonderful afternoon.

Harriett

“Let me show you how it’s done.”

“Warning:  the last 30 seconds is rated R, for mature audiences only.”

Respectfully,

Harriett

Ozzie 1 mile up River

Ozzie surveyed his new domain.

“Fishing grounds to be expanded this year,” he thought.

He planned to expand them from North River marsh, to the south bank, to 1 mile up river. He cleared the competition. Ozzie is getting tougher and wiser as he approaches his 7^th birthday.

“All clear, and all mine,” he thought.

“All mine and Harr…” he paused.

The stress was tearing him apart, the instinct to breed and his love for Harriett pulled his heart strings painfully.

“Nine days! Has my Harriett perished?”

“I need a mate; I’ve got to have a mate.”

Ozzie’s instincts pushed him forcefully.

“I’ll make one last circuit before dusk,” he decided.

Ozzie’s powerful wings lifted him from his perch. He made his circuit counterclockwise; east bank first, then the North River marsh, and turning northward he followed the west bank towards the Taj Mahal.

When Ozzie rounded the bend at North River marsh he could see the Taj Mahal ½ mile ahead. And on the Taj Mahal was a bird. Not just any bird, an Osprey. His keen eyes focused narrowly.

“Could it be? Could it be Harriett, or am I in for a fight?”

With a few more powerful downward strokes, even in the fading light, he could see her necklace. A few more flaps and, “Oh my gosh, it’s Harriett!”

Harriett flew up to the nine foot spire and stood majestically.

Harriett stood confidently looking the other way.

“I hope I look alright,” she thought.

She had gathered all her strength, groomed her feathers and stood looking, scanning the sky in hopes of seeing her mate.

Ozzie took in a deep breath.  His heart rate increased, as did his respiratory rate. He tried to calm himself. A lump encroached upon his throat.

Tears of Joy

Ozzie blinked his nictitating membranes.

“The air is dry and flying at this speed irritates my eyes,” he rationalized his tears.

Ozzie landed on the platform and tripped over his own two talons.  He banged his forehead on the camera mount, then quickly spun around to greet her.

They stroked beaks as if they were sharpening knives. They pressed their necks together closely, as if to intertwine. Then a complex secreto-motor phenomenon occurred in Ozzie’s lacrimal apparatus (tear ducts); tears welled up from nowhere. He had to blink several times to disguise them.

(A neuronal connection exists between the osprey lacrimal gland (tear duct) and the areas of the osprey brain involved with emotion. Tears produced during intense emotion have a chemical composition which differs from other types of tears. They contain significantly greater quantities of the hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, leu-enkephalin and the elements potassium and manganese. Getting rid of these excess substances relieves tension by balancing the body’s stress hormones and eliminating the build-up of stress).

Ozzie felt like a wuss and was embarrassed.  He bolted off the platform and took a wide circumferential lap around his new 2015 home.

When he lighted again on the  platform he felt wonderful. Harriett had accurately assessed his feelings. Their love and friendship burst like an ember into a flame.

Young ospreys start breeding by their 3rd year of life, but the mortality in young birds is incredibly high, with an estimated 57% of osprey chicks failing to reach breeding age. This rate decreases to 18% annually after the first year.

The average life expectancy for an Osprey is 10-15 years in the wild. An Osprey in captivity can live as long as 20 years or longer.

Nestlings and fledglings are most vulnerable to nest collapses, cold rains and high winds. In North America, the great horned owl is known to take over nest sites and has been documented to prey on young and adults.

Not so friendly

Bald eagles compete directly with osprey for food resources and will often harass ospreys, forcing them to drop fish. Ospreys will typically avoid nesting in close proximity to eagle territories.

Osprey nests are often robbed by raccoons, American crows and the common raven.
Of course you know the DDT story. If you don’t, you should. Osprey numbers crashed in the early 1950s to 1970s, when pesticides poisoned the birds and thinned their eggshells. Along the east coast of North America about 90 percent of breeding pairs disappeared. After the 1972 U.S. DDT ban, populations rebounded, and the Osprey became a conservation success symbol.

As natural nest sites have succumbed to tree removal and shoreline development, specially constructed nest platforms and other structures such as channel markers and utility poles have become vital to the osprey’s recovery.

Contact with high power electrical grid lines near nesting areas continue to be a problem, but more important is the baling twine and fishing line issue.

Ospreys typically line their stick nests with soft materials such as moss, grass and lichen, but they have a propensity to pick up discarded baling twine and fishing line to bind and adorn their nests. This creates a problem as the osprey’s talons easily become entangled in these man-made materials. Each year baling twine and fishing line are the cause of death for many adult osprey and their chicks. It has been estimated that baling twine alone kills about 10 percent of osprey chicks in some areas.

Ozzie 1 mile up River

Ozzie surveyed his new domain. He planned to expand his fishing grounds from North River marsh, to the south bank, to 1 mile up river. He made sure it was free of competition. Ozzie is getting tougher and wiser as he approaches his 7th birthday.

“All clear, and all mine,” he thought triumphantly.

“All mine, but wait a minute; I need a mate!”

The stress was tearing him apart, the instinct to breed and his love for Harriett pulled his heart strings painfully.

“Seven days; eight days! Has my Harriett perished?”

“I need a mate; got to have a mate,”

Ozzie’s instincts pushed him forcefully.

“I’ll make one last circuit before dusk,” he decided.

Ozzie’s powerful wings lifted him from his perch. He made his circuit counterclockwise; east bank first, then the North River marsh, and turning northward he followed the west bank towards the Taj Mahal.

Tuesday morning at 8:06 this haggard beauty struggled towards the platform.

“Good grief, is that you Harriett,” asked the Doctor.

No response from the bird.

“What happened to you???!!!”

The migration North has been her toughest yet.

Harriett is so exhausted, so gaunt and emaciated, that she cannot respond.
The Doctor cannot even be sure it is Harriett. She looks pretty beat up.
Ozzie has not been seen for 6 days.

The Doctor is worried.

Ozzie was delighted and relieved when he saw the Taj Mahal. He still remembers the spring of 2011 when The Red Channel Marker was gone.

Ozzie at the Taj Mahal

“I see the Doctor has been busy this winter.”

Ospreys like nest sites in open surroundings for easy approach, with a wide, sturdy base and safety from ground predators (such as raccoons). Usually the male finds the site before the female arrives.

Ozzie arrived on Pi Day, March 14, 2015. Last year he arrived March 8 and Harriett quickly arrived 2 and a half days later.

“It’s been 6 days now,” squawked Ozzie. “Where are you Harriett?”

Harriet had made an extra stopover in The Villages, near Orlando Florida. She has a friend there named Vicki with whom she could not resist sharing some risque gossip. Vicki’s nest was still in good shape and her mate had yet to arrive. She was a bit worried he may have perished over the winter, but more likely she thought he was hanging out in Havana with a few of his friends. Harriett and Vicki started playing that card game and lost track of time. They were playing IMP’s. Harriett kept winning +36 to -36 and +42 to -42 and even +64 to -64; but Vicki, as always, was a gracious and respectful opponent, a shining example of friendly conduct.

How did she get so good, thought Vicki. “Certainly not by playing with the Doctor.”

What happens when one mate migrates back to the nest before the other?

The longer the time interval between mates’ arrival at the breeding site, the more likely it is that the first to arrive will attract or be attracted to a new mate. Yes, Ospreys do mate for life as far as we know, but that bond needs to be reinforced each spring by the arrival of the second mate. If too much time elapses, a bird will accept another mate, since the instinct to breed is far greater – and more important – than the instinct to wait for a mate that may have perished over the winter.

Pay attention, Harriett!

One major danger is weather, especially when crossing large bodies of water. For instance, Ospreys crossing the Caribbean or the Straits of Florida can be blown off course if they fly into a strong headwind or get caught in a severe thunderstorm. Anything that slows their flight and increases the time it takes them to make the crossing could drain strength or fat reserves (their fuel) and put them at risk. Worst case, they may have to ditch into the water, or if they do make it to land somewhere, they may be too exhausted to fish to regain their strength.

Another major danger is being shot by humans. This could happen anywhere. However, birds migrating in this part of the world are particularly vulnerable when they fish in private and commercial fish farms/ponds in the Dominican Republic, Haiti or Cuba. Many of the farms are owned by local people living at or near subsistence level, who do not take kindly to anyone or anything that “steals” their fish.

Journal of Raptor Research
Mark S. Martell, Richard O. Bierregaard Jr., Brian E. Washburn, John E. Elliott, Charles J. Henny, Robert S. Kennedy, Iain MacLeod

Fall migration patterns of North American Ospreys have been described and studied disproportionately more than, the spring migration of these birds. We used satellite telemetry to: (1) determine the timing, duration and migratory routes of spring migrations; (2) determine if differences in spring migration patterns existed between the sexes and (3) compare consecutive fall and spring migrations of individual Ospreys.

The median dates for departure from the wintering grounds and arrival on the breeding grounds did not differ significantly between adult male and female Ospreys.  Nonetheless, the male almost always arrives a few days before the female.

Compared to their fall migrations, Ospreys spent fewer days on migration, fewer days in stopover periods along the migration route and traveled farther (on average) each day during spring.

Our findings suggest that, although sex and breeding location might influence the spring migration strategy used by individual Ospreys, both males and females minimize the time spent on migration to ensure a timely arrival on the breeding grounds to establish or defend a nesting territory.

The female H. Sapien saw him first. The Doctor and the female H. Sapien were talking to their son on speakerphone. The female H. Sapien simply said, “There’s Ozzie”.

The Doctor looked up. It was like Christmas and Easter and Happy Birthday rolled into one. Sure enough, there was Ozzie poised majestically, on the Taj Mahal, at the top of the 9 foot spire.

The Doctor became discombobulated. He tripped over his two left feet as he vaulted for his camera.  Masterfully, he steadied the tripod and made it level. The little bubble easily found its home.

Click, click, “Something’s wrong here,” thought the Doctor.
Click, click again. “Oh yeah; the lens cap.”
The Doctor adroitly removed the lens cap. He could see Ozzie through the viewfinder clearly now.

Click click, “Something’s wrong here!”
Click, click again. “What? No memory card?”
He dashed to his office and snatched up ScanDisk 1.0 GB. It snapped comfortably into place.

Click, click……..then nothing. Nothing at all, ——- dead battery!
He shot to his office.
Back now with charged battery retrieved.

Click, battery in place.
Snap, battery latch closed.
Zoom, focus, click, click, click.

The Doctor got three quick pictures of Ozzie seconds before he flew off.
And here they are: