Osprey & Heron Nesting At Feeley Feild

 On July 12th, I decided to check out an osprey nest location someone told me about in Sudbury, MA (very close to Raymond Reservation). I hadn't visited the one on the Assabet River (Maynard, MA) for a while, partially because it was so far away. This one was much closer. I biked in the afternoon, at around 5:00. The sunset time in July is around 8:15, so I still had plenty of daylight. I hid my bike in some tall grass, and took out my camera, and less than 30 seconds after I arrived, One of the parents flew over me. It had flown in from a fishing trip in the wetlands. It screeched a few times, turned around, and flapped away. I couldn't find the nest at first, but I did notice a great blue heron rookery which contained 5 nests. As I began shooting the herons, The adult returned with a large fish in its talons. It landed in the nest, which I realized was on top of a light pole!

A light pole makes a very good location for an osprey nest. Osprey build nests on both man made structures and trees. There is another osprey's nest I have seen in Woods Hole, MA which is inside a radio tower. It was very difficult to get a good shot in this location, mostly because the only area that is high up enough to offer a peak into the nest (a grassy hillside) is about 150 feet from the nest, so the quality is low. The two images above were taken from inside the baseball field, and the below image was taken from the hill...

I was told that there would be osprey chicks but I had not seen any that evening. The heron rookery on the other hand, echoed a constant squawking noise, almost duck-like. 4 out of 5 of the nests in the rookery were active, each with 1 to 3 chicks which looked almost exactly like their parents. I went home and returned the next day at around the same time of day, this time with a goal to focus on the heron nests...

Adult heron regurgitating food for its chicks

 

...But I still had a very hard time ignoring the osprey, which were carrying fish into their nest the whole time, and would scream as they did it. After shooting the herons a while, I turned my attention to one of the adults who was flapping in with a fish. That's when I got my first peek at one of the chicks...

...I returned two more times before writing this post, and I now know for a fact that there are at least 2 chicks in the nest. I would show the photos of all the chicks, but stupid me forgot the SD card, and I don't yet have any photos of it. I will go back soon.