2022-1: Time Speeds Up for Island Creek Ospreys

Mrs. Perfect, above, devises a sorting system for her chicks this year, in the vein of Hunger Games or Theseus and the Minotaur.

In March 2020, four Ospreys returned to established nests in Island Creek a couple hundred feet from our house and six Ospreys migrated north for the first time to skirmish over two new nest platforms the Captain had installed off the oyster house next door. A telescope in 2021 led to anthropomorphism, specifically, snarky names given to the 10 Ospreys. There were so many Ospreys in 2022 the Captain declared St. George Island the Osprey Capital of the World and by ’23 Osprey poop had become an island issue. By ’24, that wasn’t an issue anymore.
This is season seven since my Osprey snooping began. My tattling on them continues here. Get the whole story of 2020–What I Knew Then, What I Know Now–2026 at Island Creek Osprey.

2022 – What I Knew Then, What I Know Now – 2026

2022 took off early and held a fast pace. Some of the named 10 showed up a month ahead of their previous year’s arrival. The Perfects dropped into place March 7, perched side by side as if a single, ceramic unit had been lowered onto the rim of their nest. They hatched four chicks in 2022 and subdivided their nest to jettison the younger two from the feeding schedule, as required.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet arrived the day after the Perfects, Mrs. B mid-morning and Mr. B careening up the creek early evening, landing gently on Mrs. B and mating. She greeted him head down, tail high, and their breeding season began.

 Note:  Ospreys don’t carry full-sized reproductive baggage year round. Initial mating efforts—the failures and successes—expand the gear to production size and drop it into place. Experienced couples can pack these preliminaries into seven to 10 days of concentrated and consummated mating to deliver a fertilized egg. Newer pairings take more time. Weeks. Longer. Maybe not until next season. Timing is the essence.

 

Big Mama arrived the same day as the Bennets. I didn’t clock Big Daddy’s arrival, but he was taking a turn incubating eggs by April 1, so he’d arrived close on Big Mama’s tail.

Ethel and the two Marks arrived mid-March and resumed skirmishes between the two nests south of the dock; they flew tandem and as a synchronized trio above the creek, they buzzed nests close enough to cause small fracases.

Ethel and Mark-8 reclaimed Nest 1 and resumed squabbling with Nest 2 using the same old tricks: Mark 8 buzzed the Bennets as they began mating. Mr. B stole stick after stick from Mark-8’s nest.

Mrs. B, a tenacious and relentless defender of Nest 2, could yet be surprised by Ethel quickly touching down on Nest 1 behind Mrs. Bennet’s back, only to spring over to her own nest as Mrs. B realizes. It drove Mrs. Bennet nuts.

Mrs. B once rocketed off Nest 2, talons raised, hit Ethel square on the back, tumbling her overboard off Nest 1’s perch.

 

The four of them looked more prankish than hazardous. This was their third year back. They worked together to drive off intruders, which I considered to be those I had not named, but their definitions were narrower.

Matters still looked to be leveling out to a neighborly season. Mrs. B properly settled in and started laying eggs on March 25, still an early bird well ahead of the standard Chesapeake Osprey calendar.

She had plenty of time if something should go awry.

Previous Episode: 2021.6  Mark-8, What Else?

Upcoming Episode: 2022.2  Building Code Spat over Split-Level