Sasanoa River, Maine

I was able to make a quick check on the Sasanoa River nests - and while a bit of the news was bittersweet, it really was all good.

The first thing I noticed was that there was no one on the eagle nest platform.

I wasn't exactly surprised - the eaglet had looked to be developing at a similar rate to an eaglet a bit up the coast that I'd been watching on an eagle cam, and that one had fledged a few days earlier. But it would have been nice to see her flying, instead of just seeing an empty nest. But I hadn't seen an adult spending time on the nest since the eaglet was old enough to be alone safely, so it didn't surprise me that the eaglet probably had flown to the nice shady spot where the adults had been perched while watching over her, rather than returning to a pretty barren nest. That's the bittersweet part - they do leave at the end of the season.

The absolutely happy news is that I finally had confirmation that there were two chicks in the osprey nest:

I don't know if the jungle was getting less thick, or if the chicks were just getting more active - but for the first time I actually knew for certain that both tiny chicks I saw six weeks before - and hadn't really seen since then - were doing fine!

I'll end with a couple of fun photos - I'm not quite sure where the hidden chick is - but I'm very sure he or she has very big wings!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you'd like to see more pictures and commentary on this nest - or on the webcam nest at the Taste of Maine Restaurant - you can use the link at the top of the page to get to my Local Wildlife Home Page which has an index of the reports on our visits to the sites.