Search for Leif Erikson

Please start by reading Part I of this story to learn about the osprey named Leif Erikson, and why I was searching for him - and to see some pictures of the lovely area along the Androscoggin River near Lewiston, Maine, where he spent several weeks. Part I ends as the sun sets on Tuesday, October 11, and the next data upload late on October 13 showed that he'd been doing quite a bit of exploring up and down the Androscoggin River, and that he probably was a ways down the river where it was more narrow and he was more sheltered during the winds on the 10th. The place where he spent much of his time before that is the triangular area under the name Lewiston.

There are a couple of ways to see where Leif has been, and the one I use the most is an app called Animal Tracker on my phone - and most of the maps of his travels come from that. The app shows his most recent location (and that of a huge number of other birds and maybe animals from around the world), and has the option to show his last 2 weeks of movement (starting with the green dot and ending with the red dot), or to see his movement for the last year, which shows his whole migration path.

The next two maps are from October 24 and 26 - Leif hasn't been back to the Lewiston area at all - and after spending quite a bit of time north of Lewiston (we all mentioned that he was heading in the wrong direction - but I guess he knows what's right for him!), he started to explore Lake Auburn and Taylor Pond.
 

It really is interesting what an online community has developed to follow Leif and the other osprey who have been tagged. Rob Bierregaard, who tagged Leif and several other osprey from Newfoundland this summer, has a website Ospreytrax with information on his work (he tagged his first osprey in 2000), and also has an Ospreytrax Facebook page where he posts updates and analysis. And I found two other Facebook groups who are following Leif and some other osprey - Ospreys of Newfoundland & Labrador includes some of the people who were present when Leif and the other Newfoundland osprey were tagged - and the Gig Harbor WA Osprey Nest group has been following these osprey too, and posting great maps showing their routes as they migrated. And someone who is a member of the Washington state based group is from Maine, and tried to find Leif while he was exploring the upper part of the Androscoggin River (she posted a beautiful video - but no sighting of Leif).

By October 29, it looked as if Leif was spending a lot of time at the northern end of Lake Auburn - and one of the folks from Newfoundland did some research using Google Earth, and found what appeared to be a place one could park by the side of the road and walk down to the lake in the area where he seemed to be fairly often. And when my husband and I arrived on the afternoon of October 30th - we found the spot right where our online friend from Newfoundland said it would be - the x on the map marks the spot!
 

We did look up at the trees around us as we started down the road - no osprey visible! A little ways down the road, there was a path leading towards the water - and I could see lots of likely perches on the other side of the lake where his tracker showed him spending a lot of time - but we did not see him. We both had binoculars, and I have a small but mighty camera - I think we would have seen him if he was there.
 

Our friend from Newfoundland thought there would be a beach here - and he was right! Lake Auburn is a public water supply, so swimming is prohibited - but it provided a good vantage point for looking for Leif. The second picture is my husband Charlie keeping watch.
 

Although we didn't see any osprey, we did see a pair of loons out on the lake, and heard them give one of their haunting calls - we don't spend much time on lakes, being nearer the ocean - and we've seen loons occasionally, but I'm not sure I've ever heard one call before; the loon picture is Charlie's - I took several, but didn't get one with both of their heads above water! And even though we didn't find Leif, it was a lovely, peaceful area, and we enjoyed sitting quietly for a while after a very hectic weekend (all pictures click bigger).
 

As we were driving back, we stopped at a lookout point further down the lake - and it looked as if there might be something white in a tree on the far side! But it was not Leif - I admit I don't know what this is (and it did look whiter with the binoculars) - but what it is not is an osprey! Sorry about the fuzzy photo - but it was a long way across the lake.
 

These last two photos are out of sequence - just another look at the area where Leif has been for the last week or so (and looking back to the picture of his nest at the beginning of Part I - the pine trees here might look a bit like home to him). I can see why he might be reluctant to leave, even though there's lots of fish waiting for him in South America (where most northern osprey spend the winter).
 

I was thinking this was probably the last time I'd be out looking for Leif - it was almost November, days were getting shorter, weather was getting colder, and the pace was picking up at the office, making it harder for me to take a few hours off when it was light out and reasonably warm. But Tuesday, November 8, I had the morning off - and the weather was great - and the latest tracking data suggested Leif was spending some time in a different part of Lake Auburn, or perhaps a river running into it. So off we went, and instead of continuing on to our usual spot just to the left of what's showing in the first picture, we pulled off into a little parking area north of the road that goes across the top of Lake Auburn, and wandered into the area to the north.
 
The map above shows where Leif was each hour, when his position was recorded - and he seemed to be spending time during the day near the water, and spending his nights further inland. And happily this was also an area open to the public from sunrise to sunset.

I'm not going to try to caption the next pictures, beyond pointing out that we spent a lot of time looking up into the trees where he had been spending some time, and that this was another beautiful area.
 

 
The third picture of the bended branch is one of the many things that might possible have been a bird - but wasn't. The structure in the 4th picture is the walkway on top of a little dam, and the trees beyond it are where I think Leif was in the images on the map - though not where he was when we were there; the fifth picture is a closer view of those trees, taken by Charlie.

The last picture above was taken a little ways up the river bank after I'd crossed the dam. I had seen something swimming on the water, and was looking for a better angle so I could add a bit of wildlife other than Charlie. And while I was looking way way down with my binoculars - I saw something flying above the trees at what I think may be a bend in the river - or at least the end of the water I could see. I only got a picture of three of them, but there were four. I managed to get Charlie's attention so he was looking at them when I switched to the camera, which has a more powerful zoom but a smaller field of view, so it's not easy to find things and focus on them - if I'd zoomed any more, I'd never have been able to hold even this steady. Again, after the initial thrill, I don't think this was Leif. Charlie thought it was smaller birds harassing a bigger one, and that sounds a lot more like crows after an eagle - and it looked a bit more like an eagle, though I can't say quite why. Anyway, here are the four fuzzy pictures I captured.
 

That was it for the excitement part of the day, though I can't help adding a few more scenic shots. First, a closer look at the top of the dam, and the view below the dam.
 

More reflections.
 

We decided we should check the Nature Trail by Lake Auburn - it was not far away, and we'd be embarrassed if the next data points showed Leif had been there while we were checking where he'd been the day before. No sign of Leif, but lots of tall trees, lovely water and a loon.
 

And three days later - Leif was on his way south - the graphic below is from Rob Bierregaard and Ospreytrax.  

He landed near Daytona Beach the evening of the 12th, decided that wasn't quite where he wanted to be and headed inland the next day. And was off for Cuba a few days later, which is where he was as of the most recent data upload (I'm writing this on November 19).
 

Rob said it looked as if Leif may have spent a night perched on a boat while going from Florida to Cuba - there were data points too close together for him to have been flying. However he did it - it was pretty amazing!

And we don't know what Leif will do next - some osprey winter in Cuba, many continue on to South America - and one of the adult osprey tagged in Newfoundland this summer is wintering in Panama, on the Pacific side! There are definitely a lot of risks out there - but if all goes well, Leif will be heading north in a year and a half - and perhaps he'll visit Maine again then. ♡