Tag: osprey cam

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Breakfast at the Nest

Watched the male osprey Skip come back with a fish, think a fluke, and start to eat it while sitting on the post in front of the nest. Betty, the mom, starts yelling at him and then comes down to the post and takes the fish up to the nest. I think he was making sure the fish was good to eat.

Momma Betty feeding bite sized morsels of fish to one of the chicks.

The momma osprey then bites little morsels of meat off the fish and feeds then to each chick. Watched her do this for at least 10 minutes. She fed each chick one morsel at a time, sometimes a couple of times in a row to the same chick. The other chick would wait patiently for their turn. It was a very controlled feeding, no mad rush at the food.

Pictures have gotten clearer as i have gotten use manual focus. My telephoto 600 Tamron lens auto focus servo motor failed back in April. The good news is the repair center for the USA is located in Commack, NY. The bad news is the repair center is closed due to Corona. Manual focus is super sensitive at full zoom, has taken time to get better at it.

The chicks picking thru the leftovers after a fluke breakfast.

Amazing how big the chicks have grown, they are almost as big as mom and dad. Biggest difference right now is their speckled feathers while adult ospreys are a more solid color. In the photo above, the 2 chicks are in the foreground of the osprey nest with their speckles quite visible.

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Osprey Feathers

Baby Osprey 12 days later

A beautiful Sunday afternoon at Gilgo, looking around the wetlands caught a glimpse of one of the baby osprey thru my binoculars. Set up the camera and was quite surprised as to how much she had grown and all the feathers!

Based on the nest finally secured on April 15th , thinking the eggs would have created around May 1st. The female osprey incubates them for 5 to 6 weeks so the eggs would have hatched around June 7th. I think the baby osprey were 3 weeks old on July 1st as shown in the image above.

Young osprey spend days practicing to fly, right around their nest. The bird gets their first flight at seven to eight weeks. Based on the estimates, this chick is 5 to 6 weeks old.

Amazing amount of feathers, the chick had trouble lifting her wing, the photo makes her look more graceful then she is. Still very much learning her body. Reminds me of my Great Dane Jackson, as a pup, learning to walk.

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Osprey Love has Produced!

New family of osprey

The young pair of osprey that settled at the east end of Gilgo had two babies last week!

Skip, the male osprey has been hanging out below the nest for the couple weeks. Betty, the female osprey stayed most of the time in the nest, figured sitting on eggs.

Decided to shot them this morning, set up tripod and it was a wonderful surprise to see the babies! Looks like they had 2 of them last week sometime.

osprey nest on the north side of the gilgo marina

Took photographs on July 1st, 2020 from 7:30 to 8:30 am. It was a beautiful summer morning at Gilgo Beach. Light north wind, sun coming up, parking lot filling with surfers come and going, swell small, 2.8′, 10 sec with some fun on the set waves.

Hope you enjoy, watch the live Osprey Cam of their nest here at gilgo.com or our mobile site.

Somebody is hungry! picture soft, heavy crop, below is the original.
Hungry chick on osprey nest at Gilgo Beach with mom in nest and dad looking on.
The new family of 4! With proud momma osprey looking out and daddy osprey looking north. The kids are alright!
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Osprey and Images

young osprey at gilgo beach

We have had a fly box at the east end of the Gilgo Marina for years where it helps control the green fly invasions each summer. A surprise this spring has been a young Osprey couple decided to build their nest there.

Ospreys have made a real comeback here on Long Island and guess that nesting areas are getting scarce. The nest was started the 1st week in April with the build going smoothly when a spring storm came up with gusty west winds and blew it away. They started a rebuild right away, but within days, another 30 mph west wind coming thru and shredded it again!

On April 12th, they came back for a third try. A determined couple of birds for sure. Decided to change the Gilgo Bay Cam to an Osprey Nest Cam on the 16th and got it running that day.

An unintended consequence of the Osprey Nest Cam is because the camera is at maximum zoom to get on the nest was not happy with the image quality so looked into software settings. The image quality and size was set up last decade when 20 kb meant something.

Decided to try full image and movie files uploads with no compression. Jpegs uploads went from 20 kb to 300 kb with the image not that much better. So reset sizing so image is bigger. Thought it looked better so reset image settings for the Ocean Surf Cam too. Will see if my ISP complains. So the birds brought a better picture of the waves for the gilgo beach surf cam, you never know.

Hope you enjoy, watch the live Osprey Cam of their nest here

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