EAGLES AND OSPREYS

It has been a while since we visited our bird families on the blog. Thought you might like an update. The baby eagles are in the branching stage, which means, for those of you not into bird watching, they are venturing to the edges of the nest and even out on a supporting branch, and engaging in a bit of wing flapping. The camera is not set up to show them away from the nest, but this shot shows how big the wings have grown on the older chick.

The ospreys have not done so well. We had quite a storm last week-end, I know I got over 4 inches of rain. It was very cool and windy. As you can see from this picture, there was a lot of tidal flooding, and there still is a lot of high water in places. Well, at the peak of the storm, Mama left her nest. I guess it was too much for her. She was gone over an hour. The eggs got chilled and then a crow spotted them and had lunch. She and Papa are still mating. He is still feeding her. She sat for a while on the broken shells but finally figured out there were no eggs there anymore. Sitting and wishing would not bring them back. It is doubtful they will have another clutch as it is late in the season, and they got off to a late start. At first I thought there was a new egg, bottom left corner of the nest, but she has ignored it and it, too, has disappeared.