Millie wrote:Thank you Astria and Kulkelke for your information. From my experience Pire should be activly involed in building her strength up for fishing, and also catching for the young for at least a couple of week more. Normally the female stays close to the nest and keeps it free from bits of dead fish etc. This has not happened on this nest from the moment Piret was trapped. She has not spent five minutes in all sinse then. Yesterday Nori attacked her and treated her as an intruder, forcing Piret to leave and take fish with her which Madis had brought for the chicks.
Just a few remarks:
- Piret did bring a fish to the nest the other day and left it for the chicks.
- Piret has been close to the nest as good as all the time. Sitting on the cam support a.k.a. 'upstairs' to be exact. That's about 1 meter from the nest. I hear her calls from there every day. She still keeps watch and guards the nest.
- I watch other osprey cams as well, and also there the parets stay close to the nest, but not always visible. Also there I've seen that youngsters 'attack' their parents, which to me seems merely some sort of training than anything else.
- Both with our ospreys and other nests I watch I've seen that chicks sometimes peck at their parents even before they have fledged.
- The chicks pick up the pieces of spilled fish themselves now. I've seen that on enough occasions.
- Don't forget that the behaviour of females changes anyway after the chicks start to fledge. In my opinion Piret's behaviour seems rather natural.