Osprey Season a Bust on Island Creek

Ospreys arrived weeks late on Island Creek, traditionally starting to show up by St. Patrick’s Day. But by early April all looked well, of 20 nests, 17 had returning pairs or successfully replaced a non-returning mate.

Everyone seemed late laying eggs, no incubation began until early May and only in nine of the nests. Of those nine, five hatched chicks whose heads could just be seen above their nest rims by mid-June. None survived beyond the first hot week of July.

One nest lost its two chicks at 8- and 10-days old, June 19, most likely falling out of the nest during a battle in an ongoing intrusion by a female osprey who sometimes succeeds in landing in the nest until one of the parents can push her out.

The video here shows those chicks thriving.

 

The other chicks, two observed in each of four other nests, likely died of dehydration/starvation. The youngest of these were approaching a month old the first week of July. Ospreys eat only fish which also provides all of their water needs. Nearly all of a nest’s fish is caught by the male. The female rarely leaves the nest, this year needing to shade the chicks by July. It was hot.

Approaching a month old, osprey chicks still looking like mini-dinosaurs start poking their heads above the nest rim to look around. Like most babies, they can’t yet regulate their temperature, they’re brooded to keep warm and shaded to prevent overheating. In a traditional year, month-old chicks in the Chesapeake might still seek warmth beneath their moms. This year they fought the July heat with fewer insulating feathers than if they’d hatched on a traditionally earlier date. They ended up short on feathers as well as food and water.

When fishing continued to deteriorate and males failed to bring fish to the nests, female were forced to leave off shading the nest and going fishing themselves. Despite the maturity of the parents and extraordinary commitment to the chicks, too few fish made it home. By the first of July only one chick remained in three nests, and they perished a week later.

That the season ended so abruptly and sadly would not be a surprise to a growing coterie of osprey live-cam aficionados from around the world. Osprey are found on every continent except Antarctica.  The scale of nest failures is shocking. There are similar difficulties with eagles, who have serious aficionados as well.

As for the osprey, similar to Island Creek there are far fewer clutches laid in nests, far fewer chicks hatching and surviving, and fewer successfully fledging. Excessive heat still grips much of the world as this is written. The International Osprey Data Project, a long-term research project of Dr. Mary Ann Steggles, Claudio Eduardo, and Heidi McGrue compiles observations of more than 100 osprey nests from around the world. In 2023, the observations included more than 340 chicks and have grown this year to 430. But as Dr. Steggles daily blog documentation makes clear, much of the news is dire this year.

Island Creek’s 20 nests followed patterns of many familiar pairs watched on camera year-round, including the shortage of fish deliveries. Island Creek osprey had good early fishing and then struggled against weather, but worldwide declines in fish populations are obvious across the globe.  The chick-less pairs remaining in Island Creek for the summer season aren’t catching the number and size of fish they did in June. Some females have returned to fishing for themselves.

Avian and conservation associations point to very successful commercial fishing of menhaden as a major threat to osprey migrating up the Atlantic shore to summer nesting areas in North America and in particular those who stay in the mid-Atlantic/Chesapeake Bay regions. The Audubon Society is actively supporting a bill in congress updating the federal fisheries law to include smaller forage fish in conservation regulations to assure shorebirds as well as large fish, whales, and dolphins can retain a sufficient share to survive.

As the Cap’n says, “It’s our Bay. Let’s pass it on.”

Below are links to historic osprey reports from Cap’n Jack, who kindly lent me this space today. Beneath the links the Cap’n continues growing his collection of poetry. This Osprey Ode describes a more traditional osprey year than 2024.

• 23-06-22 Time of Dissolution
• 23-03-20, 2023 Osprey Return
• 22-03-15 Osprey Return
• 19-04-20 Old Cycle, Osprey etc
• 18-03-21 Osprey Return
• 17-08-16 End of Season

Osprey Ode

• I make St. Patty’s Day complete
• By finishing my annual retreat.
• I signal my return from aloft
• And my call is far from soft.
• Peep, peep brings my cheer,
• That the first days of Spring are near.
• I’m here for my nesting mate, I wait and wait,
• After that we hope the storms abate.
• One keeps an ear bent to the sky
• To hear the sounds that I am high
• Looking for rags and twigs in the marsh
• For making my nest not too harsh.
• Bringing twigs demands no rest,
• Delivered to my matriarch for a perfect nest.
• We romance often and survey the creek,
• Thirty-five days before the first beak.
• Sighting, diving, catching fish for all
• Lasts several months into the fall.
• Then at last the young have wings,
• To take them above the earthly things.
• As the days grow shorter and all’s in flight,
•   The urge to travel south is within their sight.
• Departing lets the Eagle loose,
• To command its realm far from the roost.