Our resident male osprey (unringed) has not been seen for about 10 days now and at about the time he disappeared the female appeared to be sitting on eggs. As said in my previous post she is sitting tight most of the time but is getting on and off the nest to chase intruders. This is not good due to the risk to the eggs.
The silver-ringed male has at last been seen providing her with fish. He flew in on Monday with a fish, gave it to her and she flew off. He looked as if he was going to take over incubation but stood in the nest cup then didn't sit down. He poked around in the nest and I watched him with baited breath, half expecting any eggs in the nest to come flying out any minute. Instead he stood there for a moment then took off. The female was sitting in a dead tree to the left and sat there eating her fish for 5 minutes then flew down to the nest with the fish and continued to eat it there. I breathed a sigh of relief and was at least glad to see that she is getting fed. The silver-ringed bird continues to try and mate with her but she is not receptive.
On Tuesday a green-ringed bird landed on the nest and the silver-ringed bird was very quick to defend the female and the nest and actually locked talons with the intruding male. The female joined in quite aggressively and forced them both off the nest. I haven't seen such physical contact in a long time. Ospreys like most animals tend to avoid aggressive contact as it may result in injury; which can sometimes be too costly.
To say our female is having a hard time is to put it mildly, trying to incubate the unringed male's eggs, while trying to defend the nest, most of the time alone. The only good thing is she is actually being fed by the silver ringed male, which is allowing her, for the moment, to continue to sit tight.
I have asked that the cameras be switched from the overview camera to the nest cup camera so we can definitely see if we have eggs and how many. This hopefully should be done today or tomorrow. I'll let you know when I do.
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Thanks!