8:30 a.m.
Home again. She is doing a lot of calling and scouting out the area.

9:22 a.m.
Our O just flew off over the river.
Still no sign of a mate this morning. :ds:

9:26 a.m.
Back again.

Well - what to think?? I know I saw him arrive last evening - in fact twice. And i have the video record to remind myself it really did happen.

Where has he gone? Was that other bird in the area his mate and they were migrating to their nest site? He just paused to rest - perhaps thinking this was a good nest site - but his mate - still flying reminding him - not this one.

Meanwhile our O is still bringing in sticks rebuilding the nest.

BET, this is beginning to remind me a lot of one of my local nests. We had one O arrive one year and he was around for a few days then promptly left. I wondered then if something had happened to the mate, if she didn't arrive back, or if they just decided to take a year off from nesting.:dunno:

It looks like we have no choice with this nest except wait it out and see what happens.

I did read up on osprey and the males are usually the first to arrive with the females following a day or two later. In this case it's our female who arrived first--- (actually she is the one from last year now that I've looked back in our archives---- the head markings are identical).

And, osprey don't mate until they are 3 years old. Maybe the one yesterday was a 2 year old :dunno:

9:53 a.m.
Still no mate but our O seems quite content to keep watch.


I am out

Looking back - and thinking about it for where I don't have screen caps, I do think our male has always arrived first or at the same time. At Loch Lowes Scotland, the female always arrives first.

The late severe weather this year is concerning. That is a long hazardous journey they make.

None of the Calgary Zoo Osprey have ever had a transmitter so their exact migration routes are unknown.

In searching for a migration map for the eastern slope of the Rockies I found the following site that has been tracking for two years now. I have copied 3 of thier maps to view here. More detailed information can be read on their web site. These are probably the routes that the Calgary O's follow. You have read the weather reports this last month so can imagine the hazards they have and are facing this year.


http://beringiasouth.org/osprey-migration

Beginning in the summer of 2010 Craighead Beringia South partnered with Grand Teton National Park to study osprey migration. This study is part of a larger effort by the National Park Service to better understand migration of animals that spend only part of the year in the park.


Map of Osprey Migration for 2010/2011. Red indicates their migration to Mexico, Texas and Cuba. Blue shows their return to Grand Teton National Park.

I found another site and map this one was posted April 2011

Judging from the origination of the migration - it is possible our Os took the western Mexico fly way.


Columbia Wetlands
Telemetry studies using satellite transmitters tracked Osprey from southern BC to their wintering sites in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama and Venezuela.

Hi everyone,

Nice maps, thanks, Bet, you are really working hard today on an interesting question, the migration route of our ospreys. I will ask some of our birders here what they think. Most of our birds come up the eastern flyway but we do have raptors like Golden and Bald Eagles, etc. using the currents over the Rockies to facilitate their passage northward.

Looks like I missed the action at the nest yesterday evening.

I stopped briefly en route home yesterday at the Bow river across from the nest and also a bit upstream around 3:30 pm and unfortunately I did not see any osprey. There are C.Geese staking out territory on either side of the nest and there were many gulls on the islands mid-river as it is very low now with no rainfall to speak of this spring and no snowmelt in the mountains yet. The Glenmore Dam is still mostly frozen over too. Hope our other ospreys make it back soon though.