Adult ospreys have returned to a Boulder County Fairgrounds nest.
One too many of them, actually.
A female osprey arrived at the nest March 25, county staffers said. A male osprey arrived Sunday.
On Monday morning, a second female osprey showed up, creating a “three’s a crowd” situation that could lead to avian scuffles between the two females.
That’s something that also happened last year, before one of the two females that showed up in 2014 eventually was forced to depart, leaving the female that’s believed to have successfully bonded to the male osprey in each of the past several years.
Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department spokeswoman Vivienne Jannatpour and county wildlife biologist Michelle Durant said the female that arrived Monday appears, by virtue of a band it bears, to be the same one that was displaced from the nest in 2014.
That osprey, which was the first female to arrive last year, was banded in Winston, Mont., in 2002 under a U.S. Geological Survey bird-banding program.
“Although she made an attempt to secure the nest site (last year), the resident female succeeded in chasing her off,” Durant said. “Last year, they were successful in chasing off the avian interloper. But since she just showed up (Monday), we may have to wait and see (what happens this year).”
On Tuesday morning, though, Jannatpour reported that it looked like the banded female “has settled in, and the first female hasn’t been seen again.”
Jannatpour said Nik Brockman, a Web specialist in the county Parks and Open Space Department, said the male osprey brought the banded female a fish Tuesday.
Three chicks, born in early June to the non-banded female, were successfully fledged last year.
A new camera has been installed atop a platform looking down at the nest that has attracted what’s believed to be the same pair of ospreys to the eastern edge of the fairgrounds Cattail Pond for nearly a decade or longer. The nest can be viewed at
