First install of 2014!

This first install will provide a safe place for a pair of ospreys to nest inside Great Bay Blvd WMA.

Mark your calendars. At 1pm on February 18th, volunteers are needed to help install an osprey platform off of Great Bay Blvd (GBB) in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The pair that formally nested on a short cluster of pilings (147-A-023) that is an "old electric transfer structure utilized to power submerged water pumps when active marsh flooding and draining research was conducted nearby." Two years ago 2 young were produced at this nest and last year the nest failed to produce young. It's low and provides no protection from ground predators, and it's too close to the boardwalk that connects the Rutgers Marine Field Station to GBB. The new site will be far away from disturbance and will also provide protection from predators giving the pair the best chance they have for successfully raising young on the Jersey shore.

Volunteers (at least 6 are needed) will need to bring knee boots, hip or chest waders to wear and a pair of work gloves. We'll meet near the end of the road. You'll see the platform staged along the side of the road.

If you'd like to help, please RSVP to Ben Wurst. Heavy rain will cancel.

Another Installation...

Mild Weather Great for Platform Installations

This week I finally got the chance to move a platform located on an island in Little Egg Harbor. Earlier this year I mistakenly placed a new platform on private property (a small island off Brant Beach on Long Beach Island) which I thought was owned by US Fish and Wildlife Service. It was not occupied this year, but you can tell ospreys used the platform as a perch. When I performed a survey this summer, I saw one adult on the platform but no nesting material. 

Well, long story short, the owner of the property didn't want the platform on his property. He believed that it would only attract gulls. I asked if we could keep it up for another year to give ospreys another chance at nesting on it. He declined and asked that we take it down. Yesterday, two friends and volunteers helped me move this platform to its new home on an island that is owned by US Fish and Wildlife Service. The (Marshelder) island is located approximately 1.3 miles to the south off of North Beach Haven. 

We shot video of the installation to be used in the creation of a video tutorial to demonstrate how to properly install an osprey nesting platform. Some of it will also be used in a documentary that I will be filming over the next few years. The documentary will highlight the projects history with interviews with biologists and others who worked to restore the population of ospreys in New Jersey. It will also address the current threats (pollution from run-off, contaminants, and litter; disturbance, and climate change) to ospreys.

Volunteers Paul Petrone and Joe Bilotta stand next to a platform that was installed on an island off Brant Beach in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey.

2009 Osprey Project Newsletter

Ben Wurst checks a nest at Great Bay Boulevard Wildlife Management Area

in Little Egg Harbor, NJ. Photo by Bill Steiner.

Today the 2009 Osprey Project newsletter was released to volunteers, cooperators, and the general public. The newsletter summarizes all the results from the breeding season. The results indicate how healthy the state population is and breaks down the production for each colony along the Atlantic coast and Delaware Bay. It also highlights the aerial survey that was completed this year, which helped identify more than 50 new nests this year. In all 485 pairs nested in New Jersey in 2009, a post-DDT milestone. To read more, click on the link below.

 2009 Osprey Project Newsletter

In other news, many ospreys are at their wintering grounds in northern South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.  Some ospreys are still migrating or have yet to fly south yet, but they will be doing so soon. I look forward to installing platforms in the coming weeks. I recently got a shipment of lumber to construct some platforms for installation at Fort Monmouth in Monmouth County. The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ was awarded a contract to construct and install 6 nesting platforms inside the fort. Stay tuned for progress on this project!

Thank you all for the support!

Banding on Great and Little Egg Harbor Bays

On July 3rd I was out conducting ground surveys on Great Bay and Little Egg Harbor. My friend, Bill Steiner joined me to photograph the event. Below you will see a bunch of Bill's photos of the excursion. Some are excellent, where you can see the molting feathers of an adult in flight and that it is banded.

Here you can see that this female Osprey is banded on its right leg

and it's molting the 7th primary (flight) feather.

You can see the molting and band in this photo as well.

Here I am banding nestlings at a nest near

Osbourne Island in Little Egg Harbor.

This is one of the new nests that we installed in March from a

grant from Exelon. Of the 10 platforms we installed, 4 were occupied.

This has been a problem and will always be one. This chick had both its

legs wrapped in ribbon from a mylar ballon. If would have not visited this

nest within the next week, then this nestlings could have died due to

being entangled by the ribbon.

Me cutting away the ribbon to free the bird.

If you want to support ospreys in NJ, please

DO NOT buy Mylar balloons and release them into

the air for any reason!!!!!! You can see the negative

impacts that it can cause.....

Climbing to a nest in front of the Rutgers Marine Field Station at the end

of Great Bay Blvd.

At some point we were being followed

by an adult osprey. She followed us for approximately

1 mile away from her nest.

Here I'm entering data and you can see two addled eggs that I

collected for contaminant studies (if we get funding).

An adult Osprey dive bombs me as I band its young.

Thanks to Bill for taking all these great photos!

All photos are by Bill Steiner.