Take a nature squawk
Things are looking up for Central Coast ospreys
Photo by Ruth Shelly
By Michael Edwards
For the TODAY
Orbiting high above Alder Island where the Siletz River slips underneath Highway 101 and oozes into the bay, a male osprey spies a school of surf perch swimming in the channel. The raptor’s soar transitions into a hover; his broad wings flapping vigorously over the unsuspecting school. Suspended in midair, 100 feet above the river, the bird’s powerful yellow eyes fixate on a plump perch. The osprey plunges into the water and locks his vice-like talons onto the stunned fish’s head and belly. Even with talons sunk into their bodies, ornery fish have been known to drown ospreys. Fortunately for the big bird and his family, this perch is no monster.
The raptor surfaces from the cool brackish water with its slippery quarry in tow and lifts off. To reduce drag, the osprey carries the squirming perch parallel to his body. When the osprey lands atop the nest, his mate and their chick are picking at the bones of a trout delivered earlier that morning.
According to Caren Willoughby of the Seven Capes Bird Alliance (formerly the Lincoln City branch of the Audubon Society), Lincoln City has more osprey nests per capita than anywhere else in Oregon. Proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the Salmon River, Devils Lake, Siletz Bay and the Siletz River mean that fish, the ospreys’ primary prey, are never far from the nest.
Yet despite the abundance of fish, Lincoln City presents challenges for the raptors. Ospreys like to build their branch woven nests atop tall, broken crowned conifers. Nesting in high places gives ospreys space to take off and land without having to worry about clipping a tree with their five-foot wingspans. Lincoln City has far fewer big, old trees than it once did, so there are fewer prime natural locations to build nests. However, because the region provides a buffet for the fish-eating raptors, the birds have adapted. In the absence of old, broken topped spruces, ospreys build nests atop power poles, baseball light fixtures and even high up on cell phone towers. To prevent electricity disruptions and to protect the ospreys from electrocution, power providers have built raised platforms above utility poles and constructed poles and platforms near popular but hazardous nesting sites.
Fifty years ago, the lack of optimal nesting sites for a growing osprey population would have been a good problem to have.
In the 1970s, chiefly due to the impact of the insecticide DDT on raptor eggs, the Audubon Society labeled ospreys as a “species of special concern.” Today, due to the banning of DDT, raptor egg shells are strong and osprey chicks are thriving and surviving into adulthood. According to data compiled by Lincoln City Audubon Society’s volunteer nest monitors, 23 osprey chicks fledged from Lincoln City nests last summer and 18 more have fledged this year. Volunteers also noted that three ospreys fledged from Toledo nests and two more young ospreys have taken wing in Waldport.
As the close of summer approaches, Lincoln City’s ospreys are fueling up for their migrations south. Ospreys are world travelers. Cornell University’s All About Birds website documented an osprey that flew from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts to French Guiana, South America — 2,700 miles in 13 days. The ospreys who raise their chicks in Lincoln City might well spend the winter fishing in the Sea of Cortez or patrolling the steamy skies beyond the Costa Rican shore break. In their adventurous 20-year lifespans, ospreys may travel more than 160,000 air miles.
Many Februarys ago, I was deployed with the Washington State Air National Guard to Manta, Ecuador. During off-duty hours, airmen rode broken-down Trek bicycles through the dry forest near the Eloy Alfaro International Airport. When the tire patch ruptured three miles from home or the brakes failed on the sandy downhill trail section where the gnarly Monvillea diffusa blossomed, we’d dress our wounds and limp our jalopies back to the bicycle shed. On the dusty walk back, we glimpsed magnificent frigate-birds, their brilliant red throat pouches extended, and we’d see the characteristic M-shaped wings of the osprey soaring over the equatorial Pacific. I imagine that those ospreys were the same birds who spent their summers nesting atop Riverside State Park’s tall ponderosa pines and eating PCB-contaminated trout from the Spokane River.
If you are walking along a road that looks to have been splattered with white paint and then step on a desiccated catfish, look up and introduce yourself to the osprey family. Don’t worry, it’s Lincoln City so the locals won’t think you are crazy.
• Though our days of listening to ospreys chirping, chirping, chirping — incessantly chirping above our homes, is coming to a close, you can prepare for next spring’s sky dance by visiting the Seven Capes Bird Alliance at www.sevencapes.org/osprey.
The organization’s Watching Guide pamphlet provides information, more great photos from Ruth Shelly and a map of the community’s 13 osprey nests.