Osprey complexities

Screenshots from Sääksilive Osprey nest #3. Warning for violent behavior between mother and chick, and also views of fish prey.

So as the warning already indicates, Taika and T2 had a bit of a fight today. Neither seems injured, though, and peace has been made. Taika went fishing by herself, and unfortunately when she returned to the nest she managed to land almost on top of T2.

The chick is fine, but that must have been a scare. The fish is also still kicking, which doesn't exactly help. T2 behaves like in the case of sibling rivalry, and holds its head down at first.

But like in the case of sibling rivalry, submission is not the only available course of action...

T2 lunges at Taika, making aggressive sounds, which from osplets sound like little honks and quacks. I'm not sure if any of T2's pecks actually landed, but the little one gave it a good try.

This time Taika doesn't just dodge and retreat, though, and pecks back a few times, which do land. They go back and forth a few times.

Biting wing.

Retaliation.

T2 retreats for a moment, but things are still tense.

And quite volatile.

After several minutes, they finally settle.

T2 turns away, and Taika starts eating her fish.

Eventually T2 carefully approaches, now making the squeaky toy-sounding "I'm a baby, feed me" sound.

And Taika begins feeding.

The feeding goes on for a long time, until T2 is full and ready to lie down for a na-

Actually, there's still room for a bit more.

Right, so T2 lies down for-

No, still a bit more.

T2 goes to sleep while Taika continues eating.

Not the most commonly observed behavior, but it seems to have been a stressful situation with a kicking fish to wrangle and a chick's beak to dodge, and maybe Taika's food guarding instincts overrode her parental ones for a moment as a result. T2 not having siblings to bicker over a pecking order with could also be a factor in prolonged aggression on the chick's part, and maybe in a bigger clutch T2 would have had a clearer idea of when to back down from a fight it can't win, seeing as the parents usually don't respond to it this way, but a sibling might. The livestream chat brought up Nuppu's outburst from a couple of years ago (from which she calmed down enough to feed the chicks that evening and was back to her usual ways by morning), and I was reminded of that, too. Animals will be animals, and sometimes in less cute ways, but cameras like these help us learn about all kinds of ways they animal.

As I'm typing this, T2 just woke up from a nap and Taika is feeding the chick again.