What happens if the Osprey build a nest on top of the crane

Medium heavy fog this morning (light fog is when I can't see Dune Road, heavy fog is when I can't see Pine Neck; medium heavy means that the opposite shore is just barely visible). The Chesterfield crane was still perched on its barge near the mouth of the pond with two Osprey perched on it -- one with a fish in its talons on the cab, the other sitting on the top of the crane as in Eileen Schwinn's photo posted yesterday. When I walk out on our neighbor's newly restored dock, both birds flushed but later in the morning they were back, this time both sitting on the highest point. This is the second couple on the creek; the first pair are feeding young on the Pine Neck nest. When the Chesterfield people come back for their barge and crane, they may find an Osprey nest constructed on top and it may be illegal to move it until the young fledge (which would be sometime in July, 2014).

Yellow-crowned Night Heron was back in the narrow pond mouth. This regular visitor (I'm assuming it's the same bird although that's not necessarily the case) has become quite inured to the presence of people nearby. When daughter Eva and granddaughter Juliette went down to sit by the pond, it flew off but eventually decided to ignore them and come back in to a spot where the hunting or fishing was good.

I've been hearing a calling White-breasted Nuthatch through most of June but I finally got a good look at the bird as it was picking its up-side-down and sideways way through the trunk and limbs of dying or dead Pitch Pines. Could it be nesting here somewhere? It's unusual to see it in June.

Yarrow is in bloom along with privet (one of my least favorite plants; passable in a hedge I suppose but unpleasant as a sprawling invasive alien bush). Silene or Lychnis? I finally managed to get a good close-up look at the night-blooming (and early-morning) white flower and have come to the conclusion that it is Evening Lychnis, Lycnis alba. The calyx under the flower is somewhat inflated and nicely veined, and the flowers -- some of them at least -- have curved 'styles'. As the name suggests, this is a flower that blooms in low light; it is probably fertilized by moths and by mid-morning the flower is shriveling up.

Eric Salzman