Raptor Nests

A few weeks back while driving down my street, I noticed a medium sized hawk fly over the road and land in a White Pine tree. Naturally, I stopped to take a closer look, it was an adult Cooper's Hawk perched beside a nest, the bird was holding a dead leaf in its bill. On my way into work eariler this week, I stopped and noticed one of birds was near the nest, I took a few photos through my binocular.

Notice on the left side of the nest, it appears to be the tail of the other "coop" sticking up over the edge of the nest. The whitish tip of the rounded tail shows best.

The tree is in the front yard of a residence, though the house lots on the street a fairly good size.

This morning, 4/30 I had stopped along a powerline just off rte 2 in Lancaster, hoping to see or hear a Blue-winged Warbler. I missed the Blue-winged but noticed a large bird, which seemed to be carrying a stick, dissappear behind a pine grove. My first thought was it might be a Great Blue Heron, when the bird reappeared on the other side of the pine I could clearly see an Osprey with a nice piece of "lumber" in tow! My camera was in the car, but the bird was circling and slowly gaining altitude. I ran back to the car and managed the few shots below.....

Can you find the Osprey in this shot? Its an obstructed view. No need to seek copywright protection for this shot!

After this winter's ice storm, it shouldn't be too difficult for these birds to find a few branches.

Out of focus, but you can see its got nice piece of stock for the project.

Another obstructed view, almost like watching a hockey game (from the cheap seats) in the old Boston Garden, landing to the upper left of the tower.

This bird, I only saw one "OS' today, was nest building on the cell tower pictured above, which is not uncommon for Ospreys. There are a few bodies of water near by, Spectical Pond and Fort Pond to name the 2 closest and the Nashua River is not too far to the east.

While Ospreys continue to do well in the New England, there are very few nesting pairs in Central Massachusetts. In the first two years of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas project, only 4 of 179 Worcester County blocks have confirmed nesting Ospreys in them....make that at least 5....I think another new nest or two have been discovered in the southern part of the county this year.