I just discovered an article posted online about me and the Twin Cities Metro Osprey Watch. Here is the link:
http://hometownsource.com/2012/04/16/passion-for-ospreys-compells-minnetonka-artist-to-study-broad-winged-bird/

This reporter originally contacted me for information regarding the Ospreys nesting at Coon Rapids Dam. He was writing about asian carp and the possibility of Ospreys carrying them upstream. One thing led to another and this article is the result. Hope it will stimulate some more interest in these birds and the research we are trying to do.

Many people ask why it is important to monitor these Osprey nests. This is a labor of love, driven by passion, to learn more about these magnificent birds of prey. They are an indicator species and therefore their status reveals much about the health of our environment. Because Ospreys eat primarily fish for their entire lifetime, they are vulnerable to chemicals that are present in the water and ...can accumulate in their bodies. Any drop in their productivity can be a red flag to us, and therefore their population needs to be monitored carefully. The productivity dropped last year so its important to follow up this year to see if this is a trend. Of course there are normal ups and downs to their productivity, but it is the long term trends that we are interested in.

Eagles are monitored quite carefully and blood samples analyzed, but they eat things other than fish so may not be as affected by contaminants as Ospreys are.  Since Ospreys are a large bird that nests in the open, they are fairly easy to monitor, so I am hoping to continue this work and find interested people to assist with this research.

 I remember years ago meeting with Harrison "Bud" Tordoff, the well known University professor who was so instrumental in the Peregrine project. He urged us to monitor and band as many Osprey nests as we possibly could, for as long as we possibly could, as long as there were people willing to do this work. He pointed out that we cannot always know what we are researching for, but if we continued to collect the data, in hindsight it might be extremely valuable. I am trying, Bud!

Interesting few days. Some nests are eerily quiet and empty...ones that have had long term residents. Some people expected the Ospreys to return early due to the warm spring, but Ospreys migrate to South and Central America for the winter and have no idea what the weather is like here. They leave on their spring migration as a response to the amount of  daylight. Of course they did  not run into snow and frozen lakes south of here so I expected we might see them a few days early, but not weeks early. Many returned at the normal time. The empty nests may be a result of something else...and that makes me continue this research. Today I was observing two nests that had new males on them. Different behaviors on each of them. On one nest I noticed that the male was very calm and not defensive...sitting very close to the female, side by side touching their wings, basking in the warm afternoon sunshine and snoozing a bit. I wondered if he was from a nest that had a lot of human activity because he was not concerned about my presence at all. I read his band and, yes, he was from a nest that is near an elementary school. The other pair I observed were having a little more difficulty with their new partnership. The male had a fish and did not offer it to the female...he went to a tree to eat and ignored her. When several other Ospreys showed up and were flying and chirping above, he flew up and started a sky dance, which is a courtship behavior, as if to say "she is mine" to the other ospreys...and perhaps to say to her, "pick me". He still did not share his fish. He later went and got another fish...ate part of it and then went to the nest to give it to her and she immediately flew away, rejecting his offer. We will see what happens.

For those of you following the saga of the freeway nest and that female, J4...She has a mate! There was a male on the nest today and he is unbanded. He does not display any of the defensive postures of a new male so is probably the male from last year but I will have to dig out the drawings I make of the distinct markings on unbanded birds. Any way, her long wait is over. Good news. Other birds are waiting and some nests are still empty. As reports roll in, I am very busy checking nests and reading bands, training new volunteers. The miles I put on my old car is crazy. This is what  passion does to you...but I truely want to know what is going on out there and to answer the many questions I still have about these birds.
What is it about them that is so captivating? Wish I had more time and money to do the research I really want to do.

As I promised in the past post, here is a description of what "hacking" is, for those who are unfamiliar with the word. It is a term that is originally from falconry and is a method for soft release, usually of a young preflighted bird.
In the case of the osprey reintroduction, we collected young ospreys from northern Minnesota at about 5to 6 weeks of age. At that time they are old enough to know they are ospreys ( no threat of imprinting) but cannot fly. They were put into "hack boxes", which were large 6'x6' boxes with hardware cloth around the outside and a roof on top.This served to protect them from predators  The boxes were placed high on some scaffolding to simulate their natural nesting habitat. We built a nest inside the box for the chicks to lay in. They were hand fed twice each day and they spent time looking out at the world surrounding them to become aclimated to their new home.  They exercised their wings and learned to rip and tear a whole fish. As they began to show the developmental signs of being ready to fly we originally opened one side of the box for them to fly. This unfortunately left the ones who were not ready vulnerable to predation. So I developed a way to release them individually by taking them to the roof of the box in a box or duffle bag and we let them slowly step out of the box. We had perches up there for them and a big plate full of fish so they understood that this was the place to return to for food. It worked every time. They would sit for a while and eventually take flight when ready. They returned to eat several times a day and would often congregate on top of the box and food beg. I was one of the hack site attendants, and the sound of that chorus of hungry young ospreys was a delight to hear as I rounded the bend with a 5 gallon pail of fish for them.Ospreys will return to the place where they learned to fly when ready to breed. This is the process that was used to restore Ospreys as a nesting species to the Twin Cities.  Most of the birds on our nests now are wild hatched but there is still one hacked male alive at 19 years of age.

This is the rest of the story of purple banded J4 from Iowa, the freeway nest female...it occurred to me that many of you like to hear these life stories of various Ospreys. In my last post I touched on some of J4's history, so here is the rest, the prequel! She initially came to nest on that very tall freeway light in 2005. She was with a banded male whose band was not read...not for lack of trying tho! During the incubation period he was observed having difficulty breathing and struggled to haul sticks up to the nest. He would gasp for air in a behavior that is called "gaping". Its not a good sign. Raptors are vulnerable to an illness called aspergillosis, which is a fungal lung disease which can be stress related. Don't know if this was his problem. At any rate he disappearred after I observed his difficulties and he was presumed dead. This left J4 incubating those eggs alone with no male to bring her fish. She food begged loudly everytime another Osprey flew by and eventually she did attract another male, KM ( hatched on the Arsenal nest in 2001). He was interested in copulating and would eventually bring her a fish , but when she left the nest with the fish to eat, he would not sit on those eggs which were not his. The eggs were left uncovered too much and they died. So the nest failed that first year, but KM and J4 did bond and remained together at that nest though the 2010 nesting season. They produced 13 chicks together. Sadly last year, he did not return. J4 returned from her long migration to her nest being gone and no mate. She did find a new unbanded male and they settled at the nestpole near Gleason Rd and 62 on Creek Valley Elementary School grounds and dealt with all the stresses of that nest site as described in the earlier post. And now she is alone again and we are waiting to see if she can find another mate or if her unbanded male will eventually show up. Because she was hacked out ( I will describe the hacking process in another post) in the Iowa reintroduction project, she is more accustomed to humans than some other Ospreys and seems able to handle the activity level at that site, but not all Ospreys will. Hope she can find a male who is tolerant of people. Wish her luck!

Many of you may have heard about the Osprey nest that was on the freeway lights near 62 and 169 in Edina that was removed by the DOT in Dec 2010. That pair moved to a new not-so-great nest nearby where they were hounded by the sandblasting and painting of a nearby water tower, and people playing tennis at the courts beneath them last summer. They managed to fledge three chicks in spite of it all. Well that female is back and has been sitting there alone now since March 28. I got a report of a second osprey there but I visited the nest twice yesterday and again this morning and she was alone.
Hope she attracts some handsome young Osprey soon. She is ten years old this year and was originally hacked out in a reintroduction project in Iowa. In her prime.