Articles by M.c. Koblos

Week 8: We Have Eggs

Hooray! We have eggs! the only question is how many she will have, two or three. As close as I could tell, she started incubating last Sunday morning. From my window I can just barely see the top of her head. This now begins the quiet days. Day will follow day, and she will sit, fair weather or foul, 24/seven, for about five weeks, when the fledglings will crack their eggs and appear. Oliver is now very attentive to her, sitting beside her for long periods, and he brings her a nice big...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 5/6/10

Week 9, 10, and 11

Week 9: The Season of Sitting Olivia continues her perseverance. Oliver continues his vigilance. He visits her often and sits at her side and brings her fish to eat. Livie stands up every so often to rearrange the eggs so that they are uniformly heated and to stretch her wings. And the long days continue. We had high winds on Sunday. Oliver could not stay on the nest with Olivia, or even on any nearby piling. But Livie stayed scrunched down deep in her nest, not even eating until evening...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 5/27/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 14: Birth Order

The babies are being well fed and cared for. Their feeding schedule is based on the fishing schedule, which is based on the height of the sun. So it’s always early morning and late afternoon, when the sun’s rays are not reflected back from the surface, and enter at an angle instead, making it easier for an osprey to spot fish near the surface. Midday is always a rest period. Oliver delivers the fish, but only Olivia does the feeding. The babies hatch on successive days, in...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 6/17/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 15: The Lone Child

The other morning, I looked out the window to see Olivia off the nest, sitting on a perch I had nailed to a nearby piling. She was busily preening her feathers. After seven weeks virtually glued to the nest, she had taken on a rumpled and ragged look. I guess she finally felt that the kid(s) could get along without her for a short time while she did some personal grooming without being bothered by her ever-hungry chick(s) clamoring for attention. But she was soon back on the job, trying...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 6/24/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 16: Junior Thrives

There is only one baby osprey this year, Olivia usually has three each year, but she has been having her trials of late. Last year, she lost all her babies when a windstorm toppled the nest into the water and the chicks drowned. This year, some sort of mishap occurred with her initial eggs. Junior is growing by leaps and bounds and is well attended by his parents. I see his little tousled head poking up above the nest every day now as his mother feeds him fresh-caught fish. When he...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 7/1/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 17: Coming Along Fine

Olivia is rearranging the furniture again. She’s been tugging and pushing and bringing in new twigs and slowly widening and, at the same time, lowering the edges of the nest in preparation for Junior’s growth and ultimate venture into flying. In the end, the nest will be as flat and broad as she can make it. The feeding goes on, and Junior keeps growing. It takes about eight weeks from hatching to flight, so we have a ways to go before Junior takes to the air. Sometime in mid...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 7/8/10

The Osprey Saga-

Week 18: He — or She — Is a Big Baby

Junior is getting really big. He’s over half the size of his mother now, and is working his father hard to satisfy his ever-increasing appetite for fish, which his mother still feeds him one bite at a time. He was awkwardly stretching his wings out the other day; it won’t be long now before his mother will have him flapping his wings to develop his flight muscles. In case you wondered, even in hot weather, ospreys don’t need to drink water. They get enough from the...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 7/15/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 19: On the Road to Independence

A milestone has been reached. Junior is finally feeding himself. Now he can stuff himself with fish to his heart’s content and grow even faster. Here’s how it came about. After Oliver delivered the fish one morning, Olivia hunched over it and tore into it without feeding it to Junior. Then Olivia took off and flew circles and figure eights around the nest, swooping in close every once in a while. She was getting young Junior to feed himself of the pieces she had torn off,...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 7/22/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 20: T'ween

During the early part of the week, Olivia cleared all the twigs off the nest platform. The nest is gone. there remains only the bare platform itself, which she and Junior occupy. It is like the deck of an air carrier, cleared for air operations. Junior is as big as his mom now. She tries to get him to flap his wings, but he’s too lazy and after a few flaps just stands there like a dummy. She still does the fly-around-the-nest bit, but he’s buying none of it. He is in the...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 7/29/10

The Osprey Saga

Week 21: We Have Lift-Off!

Today, July 29, at approximately 11:09am, Junior took to the air. He was out there on the nest platform with his mother, doing his calisthenics. When I looked again, the platform was empty. I got my binoculars and went out on my pier, knowing he would be nearby. Sure enough, there he was, two piers east of mine, sitting in the middle of the end section of the pier, his mother swooping in and out over him x and landing and talking to him ... and taking off, trying to get him airborne...

Article - Osprey Saga by M.C. Koblos; by M.C. Koblos; 8/5/10