On Osprey Time

What are the Ospreys Up to? If you go Ospreying (birding for Ospreys) during the next   3–4 weeks you might be disappointed as most nests will appear empty. Most females in   the Cayuga Lake Basin are sitting tight on their nest, trying to keep their eggs an even   99 degrees despite the swings in temperature. Look for their white heads poking up just   above the stick nest. You will also see males guarding their nests and mates from the   nest perch or in a nearby tree. Males bring fish to feed their mates and incubate the   eggs as the females can eat in the trees. The pairs are still copulating even though they   are done laying eggs. This is also the time when intruders or floaters visit nests, challenging the owners and attempting to mate with unguarded females.   Allen H. Treman Marine Park nest.   Along Ithaca’s waterfront, the incubating females are tight on their nest. The oldest nest   in the south end of the lake is the Allen H. Treman Marine Park (active since 2012). The 

  Osprey begging for a fish, courtesy of Martin Brehman.  Never doubt the capacity of Ospreys to adapt. It’s the key to their success. Just when  you think they will do something, they do the opposite. The Ospreys’ stubborn nature  and their plasticity of nesting sites allows them to readily adapt their nesting strategies  to suit the changing environment.   When Ospreys select a utility pole to support their nests, they unknowingly put their  lives at risk. If any part of the flammable nest touches the pole’s live wires, fires can  occur, killing the Ospreys and creating power outages. On March 27, workers from the  National Grid company removed five decades-old nests along Osprey Alley, the section  of Routes 5 & 20 that cuts through the Montezuma  Nest on left was on Osprey Alley. Nest on right is a FiberNest replacement, courtesy of FiberNest.  National Wildlife Refuge, and replaced them with FiberNest saucers. The day before, I saw the female sitting in the 3 foot deep nest bu

What is going on in the nest? You can’t see from the ground.   What goes on in the nest during incubation? In short, not much. Ophelia spends her  days tending her eggs and keeping them safe. Orpheus spells her so that she can  stretch and eat her fish in a nearby tree. From the moment Ophelia wakes up until the  end of day, she sits and watches the goings on around the nest. She pays little attention  to the people and their dogs walking below the nest, but rather concentrates on the air  space above. She has made peace with the noisy house sparrow nesting in the bottom  of the Osprey nest. This is a commensal relationship, where the smaller bird gets a safe  home, but the Osprey receives nothing for the favor.   Ophelia is aware of every crow, blue jay, and blackbird that flies by the nest as they  may steal her eggs. But it is the big, dark birds she is really searching for. Vultures,  although no threat to the family, put Ophelia on high alert. Aggressive red-tailed hawks  get a ru