Below you’ll see a troubling image. It’s shows the youngest and smallest of Ozzie and Harriet’s osprey fledglings, whom I assume (for narration) is a female named June. She’s alone in the family nest and has just dropped into a severe defensive crouch – an overreaction to an unrelated osprey that was flying so high above that I could barely see it.
After the stranger disappeared, she rose and began to eat a fish that Ozzie had brought to the nest, as he has done regularly since his offspring were born:
While she was growing, June was bullied by her two older and larger siblings, David and Ricky (names and sexes also assumed). At feeding time, her siblings would edge her out and spar for the food in Harriet’s beak. She got fed when they were sated.
Perhaps this is just the predators’ way of assuring survival of healthy and hearty birds. (There are reports of older osprey fledglings attacking and forcing younger siblings out of the nest during lean times.) There also is a possibility that something is wrong with June that I can’t perceive.
June can fly well, but seems to prefer spending time alone in the family nest while her siblings are out over Great Cove learning from their father the tricky business of plunge-diving for fish. I urgently hope to see her fishing successfully soon because Ozzie and Harriet always have migrated south in September.
Osprey migration in Maine reportedly begins in August, peaks in September, and straggles into November. During migration, the birds have to provide for themselves. It’s a rare osprey that overwinters here, but perhaps June will become one of those rarities that delight birders. However, whether she stays or migrates, June soon will have to learn to fish for herself, if she is to survive. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 20, 2022.)