You guessed it....I am a Grateful Dead fan but it is an apt description of the 2015 Osprey nesting season north of Boston. We are now in the final stages of the season and here are some thoughts/highlights/lowlights:
At the Cox Reservation, the webcam remains on and sitings of Ethel and potential suitors are becoming less and less frequent. In early June there was a flurry of activity at the nest but in the end, all that really happened was the nest being rebuilt. Ethel has been observed on and off for the past 6 weeks at the nest, and I am confident she will return in 2016 to nest again.
New or at least previously unknown nest sites continue to be reported to me, including one in Revere on a light tower in the Wonderland Park parking lot; one in Saugus on a power line pole along Route 107; one on a duck camp in Ipswich; and one on a power line pole in Rowley.
Including these new nests, I am estimating between 35-40 nesting pairs of Osprey from East Boston to Salisbury but I will wait until the last chick has fledged before I sort through all the data to refine that number.
Speaking of chicks and fledglings, we are just now starting to get reports of fledglings but most nesting pairs with chicks have not fledged them yet. Over the past 2 weeks we banded 17 chicks from Ipswich to Salisbury and that is all we will do this year. here is a link to a story about this activity:http://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/seahawk-trackers-young-osprey-tagged-watched-by-volunteers/article_03a3a1b2-e085-515d-aba9-bf7c079db33f.html
Predation at nests continues to limit productivity. We have seen a high number of failed nests in the past month or so, and we attribute most to Great-horned Owls stealing eggs and/or chicks. It is not something we have ever witnessed but all signs point to it as the only logical explanation.
We had a nest structure built into an old tree collapse during a June storm. It was very sad as 3 chicks perished. We will rebuild a new stronger platform at the site.
Genrally, we have been getting a lot of reports of osprey from across the county. One side-effect of all the failed nests is that some pairs will simply move to and occupy a new nest site after failing, so in June and July there were reports of pairs showing up at unoccupied sites, building nests and acting territorial. This is not unusual but makes getting accurate counts of breeding pairs more challenging. Also, young Osprey fledged in previous years are in the area as non-nesting adults, so they add to the confusion as they will interact with nesting pairs. Suffice it to say this is a good problem to have. No question we need to keep installing new nesting platform in stategic areas along the coastline.
Finally, lest we not forget our one year old friend Flow, who remains in central Cuba. His behavior has been remarkable consistent on a large lake, where he is likely to remain until the spring of 2016 when he should start his first northward migration back to Massachusetts.
So much of the success of the Osprey Program is the dedicated work of volunteers like Janet, Emerson, Steve, Lynette, Lynn, Sue, Harry, Jackie, Jeff, Shirley, Jerry, Mary-Ann, Debbie, Jack, Stan, Casey, Peter, Buster, and others I may be forgetting, who have combined to date to submit over 650 nest monitoring reports. I could not keep track of what's going on without their help. Thanks you all.