Ospreys, Loons and Blueflag Iris

The Osprey’s one to four pinkish to cinnamon eggs, wreathed, and spotted reddish brown, will incubate in thirty-six to forty-two days. Their parents will attend to the nest for fifty to fifty-five days. The nest into which the 5.5 to 6.8 cm long eggs were laid was built of sticks and lined with bark, sod, grasses, vines, and algae. Generations will use the nest adding to it  year after year, and it may reach three metres deep  to four metres wide.  The eggs will not hatch at once. The first chick emerges up to five days before the last one. The older hatchling will dominate its siblings, and if food is scarce, the younger ones may starve to death.

Feeding almost exclusively on fish, the parent Osprey’s have a reversible outer toe that allows them to hold their prey between their two front and back toes. The barbed pads on their feet help them to hold the slippery fish that they will carry to their young, head first. The fish carried this way aids in the aerodynamics of  flight.

During the Osprey's fifteen to twenty year life they may fly over 257 kilometres.

Common Loons too, are fish eaters. A monogamous couple, their relationship typically lasts five years. When one doesn’t return to the North, they mate with another. Two loon chicks will eat about half a ton of fish over fifteen weeks. The chicks hatched from their brown, darkly spotted 5.5 cm eggs, in a nest on the edge of the shore. The  55 cm mound  into which they appeared was constructed of dead plant materials such as sedges and marsh grasses. Well hidden, it looked merely like a clump of dead grasses.

The chicks will be on their own in twelve weeks and they will fly to coastal waters and live there for two years. In the third year they will return North, but may not breed until they are six years old. Loons can live to be over twenty years old.

The Male’s upright body and rapidly flapping wings claims the territory of the loon family. 

Turtles on shoals, and  Native Blueflag Iris on shorelines flourish on this  22 of June 2014.

Itoh Peony 'Bartzella'

Opening today:

Itoh Peonies are   hybrids between Garden Peonies and Tree Peonies. There are several varieties,  easy to grow, and they are very hardy. Bartzella forms a tall, upright bush of lush green leaves that stand up well into the autumn. Its flowers have  a lemony fragrance. If you have the nerve to cut the flower, put it in a rose bowl.