Introduction

This is the fourth article on the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) season along the Willamette River in Eugene, Oregon. I have been writing about the ospreys at the nest in my neighborhood since 2020 and have enjoyed watching their arrival in mid-March through incubation, hatching, fledging, and southward migration in September.

I have self-published the prior osprey articles individually, so am providing links to them here for your reference. All future articles will be published on this blog.

Below are the links to the first three articles for this osprey season.

• Article 1
• Article 2
• Article 3

The links to the articles for the prior seasons are below.

• 2022 Season Article 1
• 2022 Season Article 2
• 2022 Season Article 3
• 2022 Season Article 4
• Index of 2020 and 2021 Season Articles

Observations Since May 28

There is no webcam above the nest I refer to as the Boulders nest, so it is impossible to know when eggs are in the nest and when hatching occurs, so I make ‘guesstimates’ based on the female’s behavior.

Since the Boulders female is standing in the nest (rather than sitting on the eggs as she was earlier) and no hatchling heads nor sounds are apparent, I am puzzled about what is happening.

In 2020 and 2021, three hatchlings fledged, but in 2022 only one fledged. I am hoping to see three little heads appearing above the nest soon. In the meantime, below are some photos from the month of June.

In this photo from June 4, the female is flying from the nest, leaving the male (his tail is barely visible on the right side) to tend to the eggs.

We were traveling in mid-June (to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge) and captured this view of the male bringing a small fish to the nest on the 21^st.

Owosso Ospreys

In Article 3, I observed that a pair of ospreys had settled into the nest platform on the west side of the Willamette River, near Owosso Bridge, and that I have taken to calling them the Owosso Ospreys. This second nest is about a one-mile walk from the Boulders nest.

Unfortunately, unlike the Boulders nest, the Owosso nest is difficult to photograph, so I won’t have many images of the comings and goings there.

Ospreys make a distinct, sharp call when they are alarmed, and on June 22, I heard the above osprey calling noisily and looking up at another circling osprey. I concluded that the osprey overhead was an intruder, and the loud calls were to stay away. The intruder complied.

Male ospreys tend to have all-white (or mostly white) breast feathers (females have brown patches). The above male perched on a bare tree branch over the river, on the far side of the river from the Owosso nest.

This distant view shows one of the ospreys perched in a tall snag close to the Owosso nest. We have observed several other birds of prey using this tree, including Peregrine Falcons.

One of the ospreys was perched in favorable summer morning light on June 25, providing a good /view of the back and tail feathers.

Nestling

This season got such a late start that I have been concerned if we would ever see hatchlings in the Boulders nest, so it was a relief to see one little reptilian head poking above the nest this week. The adult in the above photo provides shade for the nestling on a scorching afternoon.

It will be a few more weeks before the nestling is big enough to be more visible, and to know if it has siblings.