Sasanoa River, Maine

When we went to visit our relatively local osprey and eagle nests on June 27 (click for report), there wasn't a lot going on - we weren't able to see if there were osprey chicks (though the presence of an adult in the nest suggested there were) and while we had a nice look at the eaglet, he or she didn't do anything more than perch on the edge of the nest the whole time we were there. So on July 4th, we decided to stop by on the way back from the beach.

This time we first went to the bridge which provides the closest view of the osprey nest. It was a very hot day, and Mom was valiantly providing shade for the chick or chicks we suspected were there (all pictures click much larger):

We did go around to the edge of the river to see if we could see what Mom had under those wings - but looking up from the ground instead of across from the bridge didn't provide any more information. This is a look at the edge of the river from the bridge - there used to be a little bridge there before the current large bridge was constructed.

And here's a picture to put things into perspective - arrow on the left shows the old bridge site, the one in the middle is the eagle nest, and the one on the right is the osprey nest (all of which are a bit easier to see when you click the picture to full size).

I did get a picture of both adults in the nest:

There is something at the far right that looks sort of like a chick, but it didn't seem to move so I think it was more likely branches or something. This is from a slightly different perspective, and includes the male perched on the dead tree, presumably after delivering lunch to the nest. It did look as if the female might be feeding a chick, but we weren't able to see it for sure with the binoculars (which are 10X), and it didn't show up in the pics (12X). (I'm putting a spotting scope on my Christmas list!)

We did get a good look at the eaglet - and an adult! I'm wondering if our eaglet is female - she(?) does look quite large compared to the adult.