On July 8, 2020, I drove to Alum Creek to check on the Osprey families on Platforms AC-1 and AC-2. Three fish hawk nestlings were standing with one their parents on AC-2 and they looked quite dignified as their feathers are about ready for them to start practicing for first flights. I returned to my car where I traded my scope and tripod for my older scope with its window mount, and off I drove north to watch the family on AC-1.
I pulled off the road onto the gravel zone used by fishermen and wildlife watchers to mount my scope to my door window. I adjusted it at 30x and focused on the nest at 4:11 P.M.. What I saw was both extremely interesting, and also depressing. Last year’s nest had the same sized family with the same composition. Two healthy looking nestlings and one sibling that had an extreme problem; its body was covered with white feathers. I first thought the nestling was leucistic, lacking melanin in its feathers. It did not have pink eyes, so it was not an albino.
At the time, I made a mistake. The nestling last year was covered with its original feathers and had not grown a more mature crop. It also was quite awkward and failed to develop in any way like its two siblings.
The family I watched this year also has two healthy nestlings and a very awkward third member that looks like its original short white feathers are not being replaced by a mature colorful set. The sun was bright and hot and the pale nestling struggled to crawl under its mother as the other two siblings were satisfied standing in their mother’s shady shadow.
Well, unfortunately, last year’s pale Osprey could not fledge with its siblings and passed away in its nest. I see no hope for this season’s bad luck youngster. I believe one of the parents has a defective gene that has a fifty-percent chance of passing it to its descendants. That is my best guess. Another guess is that one of the parents was raised on a cell tower and the radiation messed up its genes. Oh well, I can’t help but think . . .
Conserve on in the modern world.