Bird Watching: Raising Aussie Osprey #9, 1 by MargaretK

MargaretK wrote:
Well today (Saturday) is day four of not seeing or hearing Mum. When she was last seen, she was alert and active. She had been observed eating a good sized fish a week ago and has also been seen to be excreting small, but normal looking poops. I went for a walk along the river yesterday to see if I could see her in any of the trees. I saw Dad and the lady who lives close by had seen Aussie at the nest site. She had also observed three Ospreys flying above the bay on Tuesday and believes one of them was Mum. She has also noticed that in years past, the Ospreys are there one day and gone the next, then return in about June to start re-establishing the nest and bond. All of us that are regular observers at the site remain optimistic about Mum. If she'd done a no-show like this a couple of weeks back, we'd have been panicking.

There's been a marked shift in Aussie's behaviour since Mum hasn't been around at the nest. Instead of standing on the nest looking towards Dad's favourite tree and calling for food, she has been standing on the edge of the nest and peering down into the water, doing that head rocking movement they do when zeroing in on a fish. She left the nest several times and returned about 10-15 minutes later, although she didn't return with a fish whilst I was there.

I went back down to the river with binoculars this morning and viewed from quite a distance, but couldn't pick anything out in the trees.

This is a shot of Aussie launching herself off the branch the day before yesterday.