Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Osprey Project

        We went to find out how many juvenile ospreys fledged or are able to fly.  You can tell an osprey is a juvenile by looking at its feathers.  Juvenile osprey’s feathers have white on them.

        The first nest we went to observe was at the Tisbury Water Works.  It was really exciting because there was a juvenile that had not fledged and two adult ospreys.  One adult osprey caught a baby bird and its mother was chasing the osprey.  
Tisbury Water Works
This adult has a bird in his claws
        The next nest was at the Vineyard Haven baseball field.  We saw one adult osprey bringing sticks to the nest.  We did not see any juveniles, but we did see other little birds that kept landing on the osprey nest.  I was wondering if the birds made their nests on the osprey’s nest.    If you know why these small birds were on the osprey nest, please leave a comment.  
This osprey is bringing sticks to the nest at the Vineyard Haven baseball field.


       The third nest we went to observe was at the Vineyard Haven Power Plant.  There were no ospreys and barely a nest.
Vineyard Haven Power Plant Nest
        The next time we went out, we started at Couch Cottage near Stonewall Beach.  We did not see any osprey.  
Nest at Couch Cottage
       The fifth nest we went to was at the Cedar Tree Neck Sanctuary.  I saw an osprey from far away.  It looked like a speck.  We zoomed in with the camera to take this picture.  Our hike to the nest was beautiful.  You walk on the beach and by a pond to get to the osprey nest.  I found a nest and it was super far away.  You had to look through a bunch of tree branches.  We saw one adult on the nest.  We are not sure if the adult osprey we saw when we came in was the same adult on the nest or another one. 
This osprey was really far away.
Nest at Cedar Neck Tree
 

This is a great place to take a hike.
        On the third day we went to the Edgartown High School.  There were no ospreys on the nest.  
Edgartown High School Nest
      Then we went to the Lagoon Water Works.  We think we saw one juvenile and one adult, but we are not 100% sure if there is a juvenile because we were observing them from across the Upper Lagoon Pond.  
Lagoon Water Works Nest
        We attempted to observe the nest at the Edgartown Cell Tower, but we could not get far enough away to observe the nest.  The last nest we went to was a Felix Neck.  We saw one adult perched on another nesting pole and one adult in the nest. 
Felix Neck
Felix Neck
        My conclusion is that a lot of the juvenile ospreys already fledged.  I thought it was interesting to help with research projects at Felix Neck.  Check back next week to learn about ospreys. 


2 comments:

Sue Arabia said...

Grey,
You guys were busy and you collected a lot of information. I really like the photos. It is amazing how the osprey make their nests on power poles and other man-made structures. The nests look really big. How big are they? I was surprised that the osprey caught a bird. I thought they only eat fish. The osprey's wingspan looks very wide.
I will check back to learn more :)
Mrs. Arabia
(P.S. It was great to see you today.)

Mrs. K said...

Hello My Buddy, Grey. Loved seeing all your blogs. The Osprey is so fascinating. Sometimes they fly over the lake here in Florida. There is even a town close by called "Osprey." Birds of prey are unique. Sometimes we see bald eagle's nests in the Bradenton area in Florida, which look strikingly like the photos you posted here of the Osprey nests! There is a nest so close to my sister's house that we can observe right from her patio! Looking forward to reading more!!