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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ospreys130902bs.jpg\")
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Imagine the problem faced by osprey parents when it comes time to boot the chicks from the nest. Winter is coming; chicks must learn to fend for themselves; soon they must migrate thousands of kilometres on their own. Time is short—they must leave the nest. (These chicks will return as adults in a couple of years when they are ready to breed.)<\/p>\n
Left to their own devices, osprey chicks would hang around and live off their parents for a few months longer, which is what they do do in tropical climes. Local parents cannot afford to let that happen: children must be persuaded to leave home.<\/p>\n
Starvation is the main tactic. Enticement is another.<\/p>\n
As the time for fledging approaches, parents decrease the number of fish being brought to the nest. Indeed, the chicks even begin to lose weight.<\/p>\n
Parents now taunt their hungry chicks with a couple of tactics: They bring inedible things to the nest; They catch a fish and then repeatedly display it by flying past the nest and even dropping it nearby—but do not deliver it to the nest.<\/p>\n
The increasingly desperate chicks respond by exercising their wings in the nest, and eventually by heading out on their own.<\/p>\n
A parent returns to the nest carrying only a stick. At this time of year, I have also seen them merely deliver leaves. This famished chick looks up as if to say: “What the heck? Bring me something I can eat.”
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Besides starving their chicks, parents taunt them by flying past the nest with a fish that is never delivered. Here, an adult flies towards the nest with a fish, but did not share it.
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ospreyfish130901as3.jpg\")
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The taunting tactic of displaying a fish during a flyby enabled me to get my best ever shot of an osprey packing a fish. A male kokanee was used for this tease.
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ospreyfish130901bs2.jpg\")
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The increasingly desperate chicks respond by exercising their wings in the nest. “We will show those stingy parents of ours; We will head out and get our own food.”
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ospreys130902cs.jpg\")
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“Just before we separate, let’s pose for a farewell family portrait.” Ah, the memories.
\n![\"ospreys130902as2\"](\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ospreys130902as2.jpg\")
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Imagine the problem faced by osprey parents when it comes time to boot the chicks from the nest. Winter is coming; chicks must learn to fend for themselves; soon they must migrate thousands of kilometres on their own. Time … Continue reading