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Hi JudyB,

It does seem very odd to see the fish being ignored. Have the 'lets been fishing for themselves and are not hungry??? The one at 7:00 is eating another fish from earlier.

Hi Christine... I did see what looked Osprey on the sand bar earlier..maybe they did catch something..

The chick at 7 was there with that fish at 1:06pm....

Anyway there is another big fish there now...

Hi Christine! It looks to me as if the new arrival at 10 o'clock is thinking of trying to steal the fish of the one at 7 o'clock - maybe she hasn't seen the one on the nest?

At this time of the day with the sun as it is, it is hard to tell who is who. Even with my image full screen I am not sure if it is three chicks or two and an adult.

Quote by: JudyB

Hi Christine! It looks to me as if the new arrival at 10 o'clock is thinking of trying to steal the fish of the one at 7 o'clock - maybe she hasn't seen the one on the nest?

You're right! The one at 10:00 is sneaking closer.

Hello all, I'm a new poster but have been "lurking" for a couple of years following your wonderful reports of our Calgary ospreys. Finally decided to budge myself out to see the crew, and followed the northern approach from the zoo parking lot and along the Bow River Pathway. Great view. I was on scene at approximately 11:30am and watched all three chicks doing some cool swoops and loops, several quite low over the river and over my head. One chick was perched on the power pole above the nest for most of my visit. One stayed pretty close to the nest, and one was taking very long loops over the river and then disappearing into the trees on the north side of the river. It was indeed Mom who showed up with a sizeable fish at about 11:50am, but the reception was pretty calm, so I'm guessing noone was very hungry. Pole chick barely budged. Chick in the nest kinda went "ho-hum" and Mom flew off and (as I discovered a few minutes later) perched in a tree right over the pathway behind me! There were lots of crows and magpies in the area, including in the trees right beside the nest, but none of the chicks seemed too bothered by them. There was a lot of chick chatter going on, but it seemed to only happen when one of the ospreys was coming/going. If I can make it out there again, I'll try to record the discussions and post here. I have some good photos which I'll post in a bit (once I figure out how...).

As a final note (for now!) please understand that these are urban chicks!! It's very busy and noisy in the centre of a city of one million people. At least 20 bikes and 8 walkers zoomed by on the pathway while I was perched, plus more than 10 large jumbo jets coming in for a landing (flightpath goes right over nest...). There was a constant chatter of crows and magpies and gulls and geese, not to mention the background hum of traffic and construction and zoo visitor noise. That said, the nest is in an inaccessible area, and only zoo personnel would have ground access. Boaters could get to the island, but there's a large barbed-wire topped fence protecting the nest site and the rest of the zoo. The pathway is part of the Trans Canada Trail, and runs no closer than about 100 metres to the nest pole. I don't think the behaviour of anyone on these paths would pose a barrier to osprey feeding habits. It's the perfect place to raise a young (osprey) family. It's been a joy to observe the adventures, and misadventures of these beautiful birds.

Sharon

Welcome, Sharon!

I hope you don't mind that I edited your post so the wonderful picture of the fledglings is visible. The trick is to click the FILE button in the row of Formatting buttons above the window where you post , then put a 1 for the first attached picture between the File tags - so it looks like this except without all the spaces I added so you can see it:

[ file ] 1 [ /file ]

Thanks so much for your great post - and I'm looking forward to seeing more pictures!

Okay, here goes with some ground pics... enjoy!

Chicks having fun swooping and looping back around to the nest:







Sharon