If not, I'll be working on something new soon... Possibly a new website that will be setup to track young ospreys that I'm banding with a red alpha-numeric auxiliary band. The band will be used so the individual young birds can be identified during migration, on their wintering areas, and on their home Jersey turf! There I also plan to have a blog to share news about the tagging program, which is only occurring on Barnegat Bay. A total of 100 bands will be deployed. More news to come on this front later this year. For now I'm busy surveying nests along the coast of Jersey. So far things are looking pretty good. I still need to survey many of my colonies over the next 10 days, and look at data from the many volunteer osprey banders who survey all other colonies to get a better idea of how well they're doing.
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| The first alpha-numeric red auxiliary band (00/C) to be placed on a young osprey in NJ. July 7, 2014 |
3 comments:
I'm a volunteer osprey monitor in Billings, MT. We have a big problem with baler twine out here and trying I'm getting an awareness program going.I'm curious as to what the main hazards are for your east coast nests. Do have have a twine problem?
I enjoy your blog, especially the pictures-the ocean setting is so different from out here. I've been to Atlantic City several times over the past years but never realized there was an osprey program in the area.
Hey, Yeah, I've read about the bailing twine issue out there. NOT GOOD!! This might interest you: http://cas.umt.edu/geosciences/osprey/documents/balingtwine.pdf
Out here the main issues, from debris, are monofilament, ribbon from released balloons, and other small line, etc... Other then that, there is just an over abundance of trash in nests. Since it collects in the same areas where they find nesting material (high marsh) then it ends up in nests. We remove as much as possible during surveys once a year. Every 5-10 years we try to clean out all nesting material from nests to avoid pre-mature nest platform failure. Example of trash we collect: http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/blog/tag/marine-debris/
Thanks so much for reading the blog! I post more often to CWFs blog then here anymore. One day I'll pick up posting here again. Good luck with your awareness program out there! --Ben
Thanks for replying and thanks for your work with osprey!
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