The ospreys are back for the season, and I’ve spent more time than usual watching the show. At the beginning of the month, just one bird appeared to occupy the pole nest near Pond o’ Pines, its mate perhaps not yet returned from points south.
Alone on the mound of sticks and flotsam, the bird made high, whistling cries — of longing, I supposed. This continued for several days, until its pal showed up. Things quieted down after that.
At South Ferry, I watched a similar scene at sunset the other day. A lone osprey perched in last year’s nest screeched for attention as a pair wheeled overhead. For as long as I stayed there, the pair raced in circles around the sky, engaged in a game of chase. This had to be courtship activity, they flew with so much joy. In my opinion, ospreys have moods that you can learn if you pay attention.
The pairs here have been catching fish and bringing sticks to the nests for as much as a month by now. If they have not already, they will conspire to produce fertile eggs soon enough.
The internet says that male and female ospreys can be identified by several clues. In a pair females are larger. They are also a bit decked out, with subtle bands of brown at the neck and more spots and bars on their underwings than the males. In addition, females’ wingspans are wider.
Osprey cams provide a close-up view. One, on a PSEG pole at Oyster Bay, showed a female that appeared to be sitting on eggs busily adjusting twigs within her sharply hooked beak’s reach one morning this week. Not much else was happening at the time, but it made for strangely satisfying viewing with a cup of coffee as the day began.