Meet the Pandion Haliaetus Family of Mid-Bay Shores

Tuesday, 14 May
Mid-Bay Shores, Maxwell-Gunter Rec Area — Niceville, Florida
Temps: Lo 52F / Hi 77F (11C / 25C)

Like yesterday morning, we woke up to a reading of 57F (14C) on the thermometer — just a few degrees higher than the day’s low at 6:00a.  No al fresco breakfasting for the second day in a row!  It didn’t take long for the day to warm up, however.  By the time I set off on my 1.6 mile (2.5 km) beach walk, I was happy to have a gentle breeze to cool me off as the sun continued to raise the temperature. 

Where was Mui while I was walking?  At the dentist for his 6-month check-up.  I think I got the better end of that deal ;-)

Red-breasted mergansers resting on a comfy bed of beach wrack.

My friend the great blue heron was nowhere to be found, but in addition to the mergansers, one of the green herons from a few days ago was at the boat canal to greet me.  And just a few feet away, a mourning dove flew in to look for breakfast.  Off to a good start!

Green Heron

Love the attractive blue eye-ring on the otherwise dull-colored mourning dove.

Once I reached the area fronting the campground, the birdlife dwindled.  Not good for the camera, but great to keep the pace of my walk at exercise-level.  Once I rounded White Point, my pace slowed again and the shutter clicking increased.

Comb Jelly (??) — anyone out there who can help with the ID?

I found one photo on the web that identified the above jelly as being infused with oil from the BP spill.  Sounds unlikely to me.  After all, considerable time has passed since that incident, but what do I know.  It’s creatures like this — not to mention the one in the photo below — that keep me out of the water ;-)  Actually, the shallows all along the beach were filled with hundreds of these jellies a few days ago.  We asked a couple of guys who were fishing in waist-deep water at the time and they said they weren’t stung by them, so that was a good thing.

Sea Nettle – just look at the length of those tentacles.
The tentacles contain toxins used to paralyze and capture prey.
these jellyfish also cause painful stings to swimmers.

You definitely don’t want to be swimming with the sea nettle.

The Dragonfly is one of the insects nicknamed Mosquito Hawk.

OK, ready to play a game?  It’s called find the great blue herons.  I walked by the dead tree in the center photo of the collage, saw the obvious GBH, took a photo, and walked on.  Then, I stopped and looked back, and from my new vantage point I saw another one.  Perhaps I missed that GBH the first time because it was sleeping with its head tucked into its body.  What do you get if you find both GBH?  Nothing but the satisfaction of knowing that you are an observant individual ;-)

Can you find both herons in the tree in the middle of the collage?

Now for the best part of my day — and the title of this post.  Avid birders will already know that I am referring to an osprey family.  You might recall that I came across an osprey nest a few days ago and commented that I thought there was at least one chick in the nest because of the way mama osprey was bending her head down periodically as though to feed it.  I was right, and I got to see the chick today.  From what I have read, the eggs in an osprey clutch hatch about five days apart.  So, I’ll keep an eye on the nest to see if another one (or two, or three) chicks hatch before we leave.  But this one looks more than just a few days old to me, so it just might be the only one.

Meet the Osprey Family of Mid-Bay Shores.

Since my first sighting, I’ve learned enough about ospreys to be able to identify them accurately (I hope).  The adult osprey on the branch is the male (white chest); and the adult in the nest is female (developing brown necklace on the chest).  She’s larger than he is; that’s another indicator.  Also, until the chick is six weeks old, the male does all the hunting.  No need to introduce the chick — I don’t know the gender, so I’ll refer to it as junior.

I didn’t know if I was going to be privy to any osprey action, but I decided to wait around for a while.  Rather than stand out in the open, I moved around to the other side of the nest and stood under the welcome shade of some trees.  I wasn’t trying to hide from the osprey — impossible to do that since they have such keen eyesight.  But by standing at a distance and under the trees, I was hoping to eliminate any stress they might feel from my presence.

(Apologies in advance for the clipped wings; not only was the movement sudden, but I didn’t have my DSLR camera with me.)

With mom and junior watching, papa suddenly takes off from his perch …

... drops into the nest for a second or two ...

… and takes off again for parts unknown.
Doesn’t it look like mom’s telling junior to be patient and dad will be back soon?

Mom and Junior staring me down.

The next half hour of my visit with the osprey family was uneventful.  Junior would disappear into the depths of the nest, popping up like a jack-in-the-box every so often.  Mom kept a keen eye on the goings on below her … and there was plenty of that.  Mostly anglers driving up in their cars and carrying their stuff to the beach; a few people stopping by to eat lunch in their cars.

I didn’t see papa fly back and perch on a pine tree behind me.  It was his high-pitched calls that alerted me to his presence.  And then mom joined in.  It sure sounded like they were carrying on a conversation and she was telling him to hold off returning to the nest because there were people around.

When I finally spotted papa, he was eating lunch.

At this point, I figured papa wasn’t going to return to the nest if I stuck around.  Time for me to leave so that mom could get on with the business of feeding junior, who needs to gain strength in order to fledge when the time comes.  Chicks take their first flight when they are seven to eight weeks old.  I have no idea how old junior is, so not sure when that will happen.  (Any avid birders out there have a guess as to junior’s age?)

My 1.6-mile walk took over two hours — about 1½ hours was spent with the osprey family.  Standing the entire time, and worth every minute of it.

As I left, I spotted two red-headed woodpeckers fly in and perch on the same tree where the ospreys are nesting.  One flew off right away, but I managed to capture a photo of the other one just before it disappeared into its nest hole.  (If you look above the head of the bird in the photo to the right, you’ll see the small, round hole.)

I have to say that I am delighted with the way my PowerShot SX50 HS performed today.  All of the osprey photos I shared were hand-held at full zoom.  I cropped some in post-processing with no loss of quality.  If anyone out there is considering this camera, I say “go for it.”  Just remember that it has a shutter lag, so action shots can be hit or miss.

Later …

Why later?  Because we lost power for about three hours tonight and I had to take a break from writing.  It was time to exercise the genny anyway, so we weren’t overly concerned about being without shorepower.  We ran the generator for about an hour, and then went on battery power for another two hours or so, with another short stint with the generator so Mui could run the microwave and make some popcorn to snack on while we watched a movie on TV.  We were hoping the AGM batteries would perform well — and they did; there was no appreciable drain on the batteries.  Boondocking here we come — but not right away ;-)

Over and out for today.