Most osprey chicks were still in the nest two weeks ago when I wrote about them in It’s time you went. One of the pictures taken then didn’t quite fit the theme of that posting, but appears today.
In the first light of sunrise, I watched a chick turn its back to the edge of the nest, tip up and poop over the edge. Apart from making for an interesting shot, it somehow caused me to think back to the 1950s when I was growing up in Rossland. A favourite hike was to Old Glory Mountain where one could stay overnight in the weather observing station as a guest of the observer. The station was well provisioned and the observer, who endured long periods of isolation, always seemed happy to have visitors.
Among my memories of such visits, was the outhouse. Rather than sitting over a pit, it was cantilevered over the edge of a cliff, a neat solution to human waste disposal that I have since seen at other backcountry cliff-top huts.
An osprey chick makes sure that it poops over the edge of the nest.
The Old Glory Mountain weather station was built in 1942 and, alas, burned in 1968. I took this picture from the west side of the mountain in 1961. It shows the fire-lookout station on the left (manned only during the fire season), and the weather station on the right (manned year round). The outhouse, which was over the edge of a cliff behind (east) of the weather station is not visible in this picture.
That poop shot is really great. I’ve seen nest behavior like that but never had a chance to photograph it. Wonderfully done!
Nice old photo of the lookout and weather station.
Hi Alistair,
I really like the historical shot from Old Glory, and of course, the ‘flying feces’ is a splendid action shot. The weather station looked like a nice building and that it was fairly large – or does it just appear to be so; sometimes I find it difficult to resolve the scale of things sitting atop mountains without seeing it in person.
Lynn, for locals, my over half-century-old shot of the weather station is probably grand. In my memory, it was larger than I see it now in pictures. My present impression is that was really quite small.
Beauty Alistair. Brings back memories of my youth when I could do that.