An osprey fledgling hovers over a nest in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Taylor Borth
August 13, 2023 - 6:00 AM
At this time of the year, baby ospreys, now grown into fledglings, are taking their first flights while their parents are busy fishing.
Wildlife photographer Ian McAlpine from Chilliwack spends his summers at a cabin in the Shuswap where he’s been observing and photographing a family of ospreys. He expects the babies to start flying soon.
“You can see if you look when they are spreading, flapping their wings and all the feathers aren’t quite in yet, you get an idea when that first flight is coming,” he said.
A couple of days ago he said he watched a fledgling get over a foot into the air above its nest.
“The babies go up and down flapping and get a little bit of air,” he said. “They do a lot of sitting at the edge of the nest, too, looking around, like ‘I really want to fly.’”
McAlpine observes an osprey family at his home in Chilliwack too, and said those fledglings are a week or two behind the Shuswap ones.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that first flight, you’d have to be there at exactly the right time,” he said. “I’ve seen parents taking fish away from babies and flying to a nearby tree and say ‘fish is over here,’ to get them flying.”
A baby osprey lands back in the nest after flapping into the air briefly, preparing to fly.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Ian McAlpine
Kamloops photographer Taylor Borth has also been out watching ospreys recently and photographed fledglings practising to fly.
“They would wait for a gust of wind to come by and then they'd practice hovering a bit, it was cool to watch,” she said.
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The adult birds could be seen fishing and feeding the young birds.
In southeastern BC ospreys arrive in mid to late April and lay eggs from early to end of May, according to BC Conservation Data Centre. Clutch sizes are one to four eggs and the incubation phase lasts roughly six weeks. The babies fledge in between 50 and 60 days later.
A fledgling osprey flapping its wings that not yet fully developed in a nest in the Shuswap.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Ian McAlpine
A fledgling osprey sits at the edge of a nest in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Taylor Borth
Adult osprey brings a fish to two fledglings in the Shuswap.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Ian McAlpine
This mother osprey in the Shuswap is protecting her fledgling's fish from another osprey.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Ian McAlpine
An osprey carrying a fish from Kamloops Lake.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Taylor Borth
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