Osprey Chick

A cruise along the Patuxent River turned out to be quite a melodrama.  The Naturalist had a rescued chick with him, to be placed in a nest as it's mother had been electrocuted at another location.  The chick was pretty weak, but he banded and weighed it and we found a nest to place it in.  We went on our way, visiting more nests for banding and having lots of opportunities to capture photos of chicks and Osprey in flight.   This little chick was a very healthy one.  

Along our way, we came across another nest with two chicks to be banded.  After we were with them for a while, the naturalist realized that they had lost weight since the last time he had visited them and that there were no parents around.  Normally the parents are nearby and do many flyovers while he visits a nest.  Worried about the chicks' survival, he decided to take them from the nest and relocate them to a nest with chicks of similar size which we did quite successfully.  Amazingly, osprey parents will accept a new chick and feed it as if it were their own.  Sadly, when we went back four hours later to check on the first chick we had re-nested, it had died. We are hoping for the best for the other two.  

This is the third time I have gone on this annual cruise with this park ranger and naturalist who has spent the last 35 years of his life helping the Osprey successfully thrive along this river.  He has been instrumental in building many nest boxes, and in planting wild rice to provide food for a variety of waterfowl, however this year, the Canadian Geese and rising water levels have reduced the success of the wild rice considerably.  It has also not been a good year for the Osprey chicks.  It has been cool and some have died from exposure or starvation as the state of Virginia to the south removes much of the Menhaden fish population for fish oil capsule manufacturing abroad.  Maryland does not allow this, but the effects of the reduced fish population are still felt here.  

Overall, I left with some great photos, but very saddened by all the negative effects humans and climate change are having on the river and the Chesapeake Bay into which this river flows.