Riverview Wildlife Report #1

The osprey returned and we are breathing again.
Come April first, every year, we hold our breath, anticipating the day -- around the 10th -- when we see the first osprey sitting in the nest. After the eagle killed the three fledglings in 2015, we wondered if they'd returned, but they did. After losing the mate last spring, before any eggs hatched, we wondered if the lone mate would return.

It was Sunday, April 14 -- honestly, we were starting to lose faith in our faithful birds -- before we left for our trip to Peggy's Cove. I was outside, emptying a bag of hay (used at church during Advent) for the birds to use as nesting material, when I looked up to see the familiar shape cruising overhead.
I admit -- I almost started to bawl.
I ran into the house, shouting, "The osprey is back! The osprey is back!"
It mattered more than ever this year.

Three days later, her new mate showed up. What a relief! And how wonderful to hear their high-pitched chirping calls again. It makes home feel more like home.
My mother says she -- "our" returning osprey -- flew low over her, as "our" osprey always did, and when I was taking this photo, one of the birds flew off the nest as I got closer. So perhaps, as we discuss every year, we are familiar and she is "our" bird. Her new mate will have to get used to us, and to the river, and to the perch.
I wish we could tell he from she. It would make this story more satisfying, and more cohesive.

Here they are in the golden light of their first morning together. We never get tired of seeing this. These birds are part of our family.

From "Findings", a book by Kathleen Jamie that I bought during our trip to Scotland in 2010, in which the author talks about how we -- in her context, Scotland -- almost lost the ospreys:

"What pleases about the ospreys is the quiet success of their return to their rightful place. A damage remedied, a change of direction in our attitudes, as the bird itself makes the turn into the prevailing wind. These are native birds, but they were hunted to extinction in the nineteenth century. Then, in the mid-twentieth, they began to creep back, and with human help the osprey have now re-established 150 nest sites in Scotland. Some sites are famous; they are public spectacles with viewing places and video linkups... I like being able to glance up from my own everyday business, to see the osprey going about hers."