Hail hurts!

July 3, 2015 • 2:00 pm

Reader Diane G sent me this nice (well, in one way) video of a pair of ospreys weathering out a bad hailstorm storm on their nest. As she commented,

These poor ospreys! Hail hurts! It is a bit sad, but touching at the end, seeing those great reproductive instincts take over again. (Sweet pair-bond; a little home repair…)

21 thoughts on “Hail hurts!”

  1. Yes, and no home insurance as well. Of course the way it works is, you buy the insurance and pay the premiums forever. Call the company about damage and after they survey the damage it always comes out to equal your deductable.

    1. And if they end up having to pay out, they raise your rate to recoup it. The house always wins.

      1. And you’re not allowed to stop playing.
        (Well, not in the UK at least, if you’ve got a mortgage then the mortgage holder has an interest in the property and can use failure to carry adequate insurance as grounds to foreclose.

  2. For Your Info: The comments in the previous posting on Nicholas Winton is not working.

  3. Poor things. They look like they are thinking, “Why Ceiling Cat, why?!”

      1. Yeah, poor things. 🙁 At least you can bet they’re not thinking it was caused by the legalization of SSM.

  4. It’s remarkable just how tough wild animals are. You have to be built for endurance to live outdoors in all weather.

  5. Poor birdies!

    Here’s another osprey webcam with two chicks that are being fed now (7:50pm EST). It’s out at Belwood Lake in SW Ontario.

        1. Apparently, so-called “wild life cams” are fairly cheap & pretty good these days. I’ve been tempted to look into it because I’d be interested in seeing what comes to visit the feeder at night. I suspect possums, skunks & racoons.

          1. That would be great fun! I’d love to see your visitors.

            I miss my possums (esp. the way they’d freeze when we spotted them on the front porch stealing cat kibble – like “one two three, Redlight! 🙂 ). They’ve all moved on since the open land has been under massive development.

  6. Unfortunately, all three eggs in the nest were damaged by the hail and failed to survive. According to posts on allaboutbirds.org (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), if I remember correctly, the female has successfully reproduced for over a decade. One of the offspring from a former brood, identified by leg band, even revisited this year’s nest.

      1. Expert opinion on the sight was that, after laying a brood, a physiological change to the ovaries would prevent the formation of more eggs this season. At least one attempt to mate was observed after loss of the eggs and occasional nest maintenance continues as the mating pair remain close to the nest and fish in the adjacent waterway. There is also speculation that the extreme heat in the region may contribute to an early migration.
        Although most of the birds covered by the cameras available at cams.allaboutbirds.org have fledged, there is one family of barn owls currently fledging. I highly recommend watching the nesting and brooding from the beginnings in early spring. It provides an understanding of the real reproductive security that humans enjoy in contrast to the risks encountered by birds in the wild.

        1. I have watched a few nest cams in the past few years–not so regularly this year, as I got more involved in getting “virtual lifers” at web-cams all over the world, but have still checked in frequently on a couple of owls and a Eurasian Kestrel. Oh, & a few eagles…

          And the Laysan Albatross in Hawaii, where the protection looks pretty good. 😉

        2. And yes, wild birds face a number of risks! Esp., it seems, the very K-selected (if we use that term anymore) raptors.

          It’s amazing to me how they can sit on those fully exposed nests for a couple of months or more (incubation + time till fledging) through everything from blazing sun to fierce storms.

          A few years ago a bunch of us here on WEIT were watching a bald eagle nest from pre-egg-laying time. When the 3 chicks were maybe halfway to fledging the mother eagle was killed by an airplane. The chicks were removed from the nest as experts felt the father alone couldn’t provide all the care and feeding they still needed. It was so sad, especially having to watch the bereft father–impossible not to anthropomorphize at least a little…

          And we followed the chicks in “foster care.” At least two were found to have high lead levels, one of which suffered a fracture.

          It can certainly be eye-opening to follow a nest.

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