On Osprey Time

  Orpheus brought a yellow perch, which Ursula feeds to the chicks. The Salt Point nestlings are about to pass another milestone as they approach two weeks old. The 11-day old chick, still covered with the camouflaging striped gray and buff-colored down, looks completely different than its older siblings. The eldest is two weeks old and entering the Reptilian Phase, a transitional phase where the buff down is quickly being replaced with a dense, wooly down, which will last another two weeks. In the Reptilian Phase the chicks resemble prehistoric raptors with oversized bluish-grey feet with long, black talons. A representation of Bambiraptor, courtesy of Fossil Wiki. The unearthing of Bambiraptor, a dinosaur thought to have feathers, led to intriguing new ideas about the strong links between modern birds and dinosaurs. The modern roadrunner’s anatomy is similar to Bambiraptor: it has an S-shaped neck, a pubis bone in the hip that points backward, a V-shaped wishbone, folding arms, a...

  Ursula holding wings out in a “mombrella” pose, cooling herself and shading her offspring. If birds don’t sweat, then how do they stay cool? Looking up at the Salt Point nest, I see Ursula standing attentively with wings spread out like an umbrella, hence the Facebook moniker of “mombrella.” As soon as the sun is hot, Ursula, like any good, self-sacrificing Osprey mother, strikes her mombrella pose to shade her nestlings, sustaining this throughout the day for at least a month. When not asleep, the nestlingssquirm about the nest challenging Ursula to maintain their cover. Ursula in Mombrella pose to protect herself and the nestlings from the heat and sun. When not asleep, the nestlings squirm about the nest challenging Ursula to maintain their cover.Warm-blooded, Ospreys must produce their own body heat instead of depending on the environment for warmth. However, osplets are unable to do so before they are two weeks old and must depend on their mother’s body for comfort. Exposed ...

Orpheus has three more mouths to feed, Pinterest. And it’s off to the races. Orpheus and Ursula have just six weeks to raise these three fuzzy bobbly heads into majestic hawks. No more lazy days preening in the shade for Orpheus as he must step-up his hunting three-fold. Even though this is Orpheus’s eleventh brood, he is curious about the wee creatures stirring in his nest. He typically peers in the nest cup, studying the down-covered young as Ursula lifts to readjust. His heightened attentiveness is needed now that there are three hungry young to raise. When Ursula cries out in hunger, Orpheus obeys. Thanks to the Salt Point Nest Camera, we can watch this miraculous growth and develop of these tiny hatchlings before our eyes. Today, their wobbly heads, big eyes, and gaping mouths face their mother eagerly awaiting a snack. Ursula rips off tiny morsels of fish leftover from lunch, taking care to remove bones and hard tissues like fins, and places them in enthusiastic mouths. The large...

  Osprey embryo cracking (external pipping) the shell to crack it open, courtesy of Dfyi. The hatching of an Osprey egg is miraculous process. In just five weeks, two cells divide and transform into a graceful hunter and ruler of the sky. The climax of this transformation, the hatching of the baby Osprey, usually occurs in the morning. Ursula’s eggs hatch in the order they were laid with the first two eggs hatching on May 11th and 13th and the last egg is ready to hatch tomorrow. Towards the end of incubation the growing embryo nearly fills the entire egg and starts to retract the residual yolk into its body cavity. Until that point, the embryo has used the chorio-allantoic membrane (CAM) for respiration, diffusing CO2 and O2 through the eggshell and the CAM. (The CAM is represented by the chorion membrane in the illustration below.) The embryo’s oxygen demand increases along with its growth and activity while oxygen supplies from the CAM run low. The shortage of oxygen triggers th...