Before we took a break, we walked the circular trail past the far ponds. This starts as a wooded trail along one of the ponds and then moves through an open meadow that is full of goldenrod at this time of year.
In the pond, we found two Great Egrets and three Great Blue Herons. The 12 species of birds we saw were mostly summer or longer-term residents such as Belted Kingfisher, Gray Catbird, Northern Cardinal, Black-capped Chickadee, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, American Crow, Common Grackle and the inevitable Canada Goose and Mallard. Likely only the egrets were migrants.
As we have noticed all summer, there were fewer insects than expected. We’ve had reports that Alberta is overrun with wasps this year due the hot, dry conditions there. We wonder if the abundant rain we’ve had this year has suppressed the insect population. Although we didn’t see many insects, we did see a wide variety of them.
Osprey Update
We have not seen the adolescent or the adult male Osprey for almost two weeks. After our last post, we saw each of them once, not at the same time. We have to believe that the adolescent is now able to feed itself, perhaps spending a little more time here perfecting its fishing skills before heading south. Still, we have to face the harsh reality that 50% of Ospreys do not survive their first year. After that, the mortality rate is much lower – between 19% and 19%. Ospreys can live for 15 to 20 years, sometimes much longer.
Ospreys reach sexual maturity when they are three years old or older. When our first year bird reaches the wintering grounds, it will not migrate north next spring. About 30% to 50% of two-year-old birds return in the spring to the area where they were hatched, but they do not nest. Only after they reach sexual maturity at three years of age or later will the young birds return to their hatching sites to breed.
This Week’s Flowers
Revolver by The Beatles
A young friend was excited to show me his purchase of this album when it first came out. I found it strange at first. The songs were not meant for live performance.
We owe it to ourselves to listen to Revolver every few years to remind ourselves what an achievement it was.
There is a 2022 remastered version on Apple Music. The original tracks were de-mixed and then remixed to give a cleaner sound.
Doing some background research, I learned that “Here There and Everywhere” and “For No One” are about the same relationship.
