All seemed to have gone well this week.
From what I’ve seen, during the breeding season, mature female ospreys usually don’t hunt for themselves. They eat fish brought to the family nest by their wide-ranging mates. They spend most of their time on that nest or on a nearby perch within sight of the nest, waiting for their mate to bring home dinner and/or turn the event into a conjugal visit.
When alone and hungry, breeding females often engage in what is called “begging,” a loud and high-itched series of short pleadings. When begging, they sometimes also shake their bodies like nestlings that want to be fed. There seems to be a good correlation between this activity and hunger, but there also are indications that begging can relate to the urge to mate (a process in which timing can be important).
Above, you see Harriet begging this week. She was in her favorite old birch near the nest and Ozzie was nowhere in sight. When Ozzie shows up with a fish, he usually goes directly to the nest and drops it there, even if Harriet is elsewhere. When he shows up without food and Harriet is perched near the nest, he has at times perched near her and waited for her to return to the nest with him:
And then, they usually copulate at this time of year. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 23 and 25, 2024.)