early or late?

A couple of readers have pointed out that it's rather early for Ospreys to fledge (as I implied in my last post about Osprey flights). They take at least a month to hatch and another two months before they fledge. But if these birds returned from Cuba (or wherever their winter quarters might be) in late March/early April and if they were an already established pair from 2016 at least, they might well have had enough time to hatch eggs and raise their nestlings to fledgling status. The only other explanation I can give for the unusual behavior -- one bird on the ground under the nest pole, the other on a wobbly, dangerous looking flight along the treetops and swooping in as if trying to land on a dead stub or the nest itself and then not landing -- would be some kind of display by a young male trying induce the other bird to mate or re-mate with him. Such a late pairing might be due to the denise of one or both of the adults or the failure of their first nesting. If so, this was certainly an unusual display; the usual Osprey male shows off to the female by towering above her with a big beautiful fish in his talons.

An Eastern Phoebe adult feeding a fluttering (i.e. begging) young bird confirms the successful local nesting of that species for at least the second year in a row. The Clapper Rail is still kek-ing in the marsh although perhaps not as assiduously as before.

There may be two spotted fawns around (no question that they are whatever passes for fledglings in the deer world). I startle one of them in the marsh where it appears to have overnighted; the other wanders through the woods with its attentive mother.

Eric Salzman