 |
| Osprey near Lincoln City, photographed by Brian Gaunt. |
|
|
 |
| Two juvenile osprey vie for territory near Lincoln City in 2007. Photo by Brian Gaunt. |
|
| For the coast’s visiting osprey,
Only the nest will do
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast Today
[Posted May 7, 2008]
[Learn more: http://fresc.usgs.gov/about/history.html]
[Check out Migratory Bird Day 2008 events]
Every osprey pair on the Oregon coast has its own human fan club, and the couple that nests across the Siletz River from the Kernville Steakhouse is no exception. These observers wait anxiously for the birds’ arrival each April, take note when the female begins to incubate in May, and watch like fish hawks for the first sign of chicks every June. It’s like a family drama, resting on top of a 100-foot power pole.
This spring, the Kernville fans were on the edge of their seats. On April 1, Pacific Power and Light crews removed the lines that had been holding the nesting pole upright and, as they had anticipated, the rotting pole fell into the river, nest and all.
The plot thickened. The osprey pair was due back from Mexico any day, and they would be looking for their nest. But the utility was ready with suitable lodgings: a new nesting platform 100 feet to the southwest. It was tall, flat and even had some of the sticks from the old nest placed on top.
The question on everyone’s mind was the same: when they got back, would the Kernville ospreys like their new digs? Would they find the platform, see a few of their old sticks, and start construction in time for this year’s brood? Fortunately, the humans didn’t have to wait long. Within a day of the platform’s erection, five birds had arrived.
“They took to it immediately. In the first few days, I saw five, including three with plumage that would indicate they are juveniles,” said Roy Lowe, Oregon Coast refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “I thought that was unusual. Then I read that last year, the pair had produced three young. It’s possible that those three survived the migration and came back with their parents.”
They were exhibiting “tenacious nest site fidelity,” just one of many traits that fascinate both researchers and casual observers. These migratory raptors are back and nesting just in time for International Migratory Bird Day, which birders will celebrate with outdoor activities across the central coast (see side bar).
High-profile hunters
The osprey’s scientific name is Pandion haliatus; in Latin, “sea eagle.” This etymology is off the mark, because the osprey is never found off-shore. Instead it prefers to dive for fish, which make up 99 percent of its diet, in large rivers, lakes, estuaries and reservoirs. Watching a mature bird dive for fish, said Lowe, is an awesome sight.
“They hover over the water until they see the fish they want, and then they dive, talons first. They like nearly any variety, from surf perch to rockfish, any kind they can get near the surface. They go in full blast, so that they almost disappear in the water,” Lowe said. “Sometimes it looks like they’ve gone for too big a fish, and they get too wet, so they have trouble getting airborne again.”
The osprey’s coloration — dark brown feathers above, and white below, with a white head — keeps it camouflaged from its prey. It has a reversible front talon and foot pads with tiny impaling spines, or spicules, that help it hang on to slippery swimmers. Biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey in Corvallis, who monitor the nesting pairs in the Willamette Valley closely, have found that an osprey pair raising two nestlings will consume about 375 pounds of fish during the six-month breeding season.
It’s this dependence on fish that caused the osprey’s decline in the 1950s and 60s, due to a familiar culprit: the pesticide DDT, which collected in the gills of fish throughout the United States. Osprey, like eagles and other large fish eaters, developed magnified concentrations of DDT, which breaks down in the body to form DDE. This chemical, in turn, caused eggshells to be thin and easily broken, which led to lower birth rates among nesting pairs. By 1972, the year DDT was banned in the United States, Oregon’s population of ospreys had nearly disappeared.
Since then, they’ve made a remarkable comeback. In 1976, researchers counted only 13 pairs on the Willamette River between Portland and Eugene; in 2001, there were 234 pairs. They’ve made slow, but still steady, progress on the coast.
“When I moved here in 1988, there were very limited observations and no known nests in Lincoln County. I looked and looked, and finally found one, on Big Creek between Waldport and Yachats,” Lowe said.
Today, there are an estimated 12 pairs on the central coast. One nests above the ballfield at Waldport High School, another at nearby Eckman Lake and one at South Beach State Park, near Newport. They are no known nests in Tillamook County, Lowe said, but it’s probably just a matter of time before the birds move north.
“We just haven’t gotten the birds to discover Tillamook County. Once they discover it and have young there, the population will grow quickly,” he said.
Because they are long-lived (as much as 25 years), they mate for life and they return to the same nest every year, they can become familiar friends in the neighborhood. The humans who train their binoculars on an active nest can see the hatchlings emerge (late May to late June) and take their first flights (mid-July to late August).
Platform party
They’ve been privy to this comeback because the osprey have been kind enough to nest nearby. The large trees and snags they once preferred are hard to find, so the birds gravitate to man-made structures with plenty of visibility, like power poles, light poles and channel markers near bodies of water.
This behavior can lead to trouble, for both birds and humans. The nest, a bulky collection of sticks and miscellaneous debris that can be 40 inches across and may weigh 265 pounds, can interfere with electrical equipment. The roosting bird is always in danger of electrocution, because its 5-foot wingspan can complete the circuit between energized equipment, or between an energized wire and a ground wire.
Utility companies, with help from the scientific community, have tried several methods to keep these birds (and the companies’ breakers) safe. One way is to build a platform above, or to the side, of the existing nest site, then use deterrent measures in the area of danger. Another is to better insulate the wires near the nest. These operations must take place between September and April, when the birds are wintering in Central and South America. Once there are live eggs or birds present, a nest cannot be disturbed, Lowe said.
The utilities are voluntary partners in the effort to help the species, which is not listed as threatened or endangered. Sometimes, osprey fan clubs get involved. In February 2007, the Yachats Community Park Task Force constructed its own platform, with help from the Central Lincoln People’s Utility District. It’s easy to spot from the highway, just west of the Yachats Commons and in the shape of a “Y.” There’s also a new nesting platform by the Port of Alsea, in Waldport, which has roosts in the shape of “W.”
If you’d like to meet your neighbors, just grab a pair of binoculars and head out to your nearest estuary (or one of the platforms mentioned above). It won’t be long before you’ll be part of the osprey fan club, too.
Thanks to Jim Kaiser, research wildlife biologist for the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center in Corvallis. For a great information sheet on Willamette Valley osprey and nesting site alternatives, follow the link at the top of the page.
|
 |
| Working on a nest. Photo by Brian Gaunt. |
|
|
The greatest meal you may never see
Story and photos by Dave Price
Oregon Coast Today
[File story, from March 2007][
Diners at the Kernville Steak House, overlooking the Siletz River between Lincoln City and Salishan, may never make eye contact with their server, much less their prime rib. The customers aren’t rude, they’re captivated – by the river and, since March 31, by the nesting pair of ospreys that make their home atop an Embarq telephone pole across the river from the restaurant.
Each year, regulars at the Kernville look forward to the ospreys’ return as a rite of spring. They’re so enamored of the birds that there’s a pool that customers and staff buy into to guess the date of the ospreys’ return (this year’s winner: Tim Tuffield).
“People look forward to them, and start asking if they’re back by about February,” said John Bingham, owner of the Kernville.
The photos on this page were shot Saturday, April 21, during a brief respite during a generally rainy and gloomy day. One bird was clearly visible for about an hour, while another busied itself rustling about in the nest.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Momma is sitting on eggs right now,” Bingham said.
With one of the newest Audubon chapters in the nation, Lincoln and Tillamook counties have birding fever, something proven this week when a quick note to a few Audubon members seeking insight on local osprey counts and information loosed a torrent of e-mails and calls to the Oregon Coast Today’s news headquarters in downtown Otis.
Dick Demarest, who leads regular birding walks for Audubon on the coast, said the Kernville pair probably spends the winter in Mexico and Central America. He said there are other nesting pairs in the Upper Yaquina Bay and Yaquina River.
“Ospreys catch and eat fish,” Demarest said. “While they dive into the water to catch the fish, they can only reach about 18 inches in depth. Clear water is critical to their fishing success.”
Kathleen Nickerson, president of the local Audubon chapter, wrote in a recent newsletter that the osprey face possible problems since the pole they nest atop – once used for power lines re-routed last year to newer, taller cement poles just upriver – may be weakened when the phone lines still on the old pole are removed.
“Meetings have been held to discuss the possibility of putting up a new pole for the osprey pair,” Nickerson wrote. “This pole would have a nice nesting platform attached to the top of it, and would probably be placed on the mainland on the south bank of the Siletz River within a short distance from the current nest site.”
There is a nesting pair that call the south end of Lincoln City’s Devils Lake home, according to another local guru of all things avian, Raylene Erickson.
Though scarce in Lincoln County until about 1990, osprey have become common in the county in the past 15 years, reports Range Bayer, of the Yaquina Birders and Naturalists. “Their comeback is thought to be because of the discontinuance of the use of DDT, which caused eggshell thinning,” Bayer said.
There are countless rivers and estuaries along the central coast that would make for good osprey habitat, so keep your eyes out, and up, as you make your way around this season. Given the proclivities of spring weather on the coast, you might want to narrow your search to viewpoints from which you may sit indoors, sheltered from the elements. And, if you’re sitting with a fresh, hot baked potato and a medium-rare filet mignon, well, so much the better.
|
|
|
