Meet the newest members of the Osprey family

[wingdesigner]

Yeah, we have lots of stuff teeming in puddles around here--mosquito larvae! It's a shame that everything leaves or hibernates before the last batches hatch, making fall and Indian Summers miserable. Now the yellowjackets and other assorted hornets are trying to store up for winter so they're everywhere, too. Seems like we got rid of the chipmunks in the walls only to have everything else try and move in.
I'm a peregrine fan, ever since that research paper back in jr. high (no comments about how long ago THAT was). Saw one in AK at the Raptor Center--lil' goldbricker. He'd flunked flight school three times, even though he was perfectly capable of hunting flight. So now he gets his three squares handed to him for the rest of his life. No dummy, there. The staff said it was like he knew when it was the "final exam" and would start acting up. So now he just flies merrily around his enclosure and vogues for the tourists.
Anyway, our peregrine cam around here shuts down fairly early, so I'll settle for the osprey cams in Finland/Norway, and the great background scenery! Thank goodness they have an English translation!
I haven't successfully found any raptor webcams in either their winter locations or in Aus/NZ--anybody else have some they'd share?

[Solveig]

Thank you, HG, for the nice wildlife story. I fully agree that Mother Nature puts on the best show. However, the webcams are also nice, and I hope they will get a live video connection also to the nest in Seili next year, there are plans for one anyway. But of course there will still be risk of lightning.

I will pass along your regards, wing, if I get the chance. I also felt sad for Crookshanks, but I'm sure the vet based the decision on what was best for the bird. The vet told that Crookshanks´s both legs were very brittle, not only the deformed one. This brittle bones condition might be a birth defect or due to little exercise or both. We will probably never know exactly the reason to the leg deformity. It might even be due to the fact that the Baltic Sea becomes more and more polluted. As the ospreys eat only fish, it is a danger for them, if the food starts to contain too much unhealthy stuff. But to cheer you up a little, I can tell that Bubi the eagle-owl is doing fine and has been seen at different places in Helsinki, however, not at the Olympic stadium where he used to be earlier. He was at the stadium in spring, but left when they started to make arrangements for a music concert. Bubi seems to like football more than music, at least he didn't like AC/DC.

[wingdesigner]

Yeah, I agree with him on the music choices. Although, judging by what I've seen on tv during those football matches, I don't know which is louder... It was probably the feedback screeches from the mic tests that drove him away. Glad to hear he's doing well and getting out more...
Thank you for your kind offer to pass along my wishes and condolences. No, Crookshanks didn't look too good in those zoo pictures, one could see he was suffering.

I noticed from the slideshows both sites presented that apparently the ospreys are the last to arrive in Spring; therefore they have to evict whatever has claimed the nest before they get there; is that a correct assumption? Being the smaller bird, they must really get into some "dust-ups" with the eagles. I'm impressed. I know how it feels to arrive late and miss all the prime spots for parking or viewing. Not quite the same, but...
(shrugs shoulders)
Our martins and swallows have all headed south, and we now have a bumper crop of mosquitoes, along with yellowjackets (hornets) to pester any decent outdoor time. Ugh. Well that's all for now. Thanks again.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Bubi shows remarkably good taste for a fish eagle. I wonder what concert might bring him back? I suspect he's a classical fan, although jazz cannot be entirely ruled out...

Crookshanks was an apex predator and as one, subject to the continued concentration of toxins in the food chain. Each bacteria gets a little dose, the amobae that eats them gets all theirs, as the cilliate chows amobae he gets all theirs, then the krill eats a bunch of ciliates, the fish eats a bunch of krill and by the time it got to Crookshank, it was the concentrated doses of billions of bacteria into his diet. As the highest apical feeder on the planet you'd think we'd wise up faster to this phenomenon.

Coincidentally, the studies that Rachel Carson notes in Silent Spring about just this accumulation of DDT being the causal agent for loss of osprey and eagles took place just a mile south of my eagles and ospreys nests, so actually doing something about this has profound and tangible benefit; my birds are likely the decendants of the few survivors of "better living through chemicals". I hope that we do not need to relearn this lesson again and again like recalcitrant schoolkids; we will lose too many species along the way. We are no more or less important than any other species in Nature's eyes, but we tend to think only in human interest. May we soon see the error of our ways and change for good (in more ways than one).

HG