Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:28:33 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Maurice Barnhill Subject: Re: Ospreys tend nest MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I had Ospreys on two different nests in Rehoboth Bay (DE) last weekend. The Bay is of course quite large, but there are also a lot of Ospreys there. Could it be that early nesting occurs where there is a lot of competition for sites? By pure statistics, you would expect large populations to contain the most outliers and hence to have the earliest nesters. But if the earliest nesters are found on small bodies of water as well as in crowded areas, something else might be going on. Unfortunately, I can't think offhand of an investigation or experiment that would test the hypothesis properly. Perhaps a biologist would know how to design one. Patty Craig wrote: > > Hi Paul, > > I get the feeling that Osprey that nest on small bodies of water start > nesting first. On March 2, 01 I saw a pair of Osprey on an old nest in > Leonardtown. The next day I saw 5 Osprey near the mouth of St. Jerome's > Creek which is only a few miles from Point Lookout. One pair was on an > old nest, another pair was starting construction on a new nest and a > single bird flew by. In the last couple of weeks I have seen more and > more Osprey on nests, but none on nests that are located on the bay > itself. This is not the first year that I have noticed this. If there > is any logic to this, it might explain why Smith Island's Osprey are > seemingly later than those only a little further north. > > Good Birding, > Patty Craig > Dameron, MD > pattycraig@mail.ameritel.net > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= -- Maurice Barnhill (mvb@udel.edu) Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================