This rather unremarkable image of an Osprey pair at Assabet Reservoir in Westborough marks an important chapter for Osprey on the Assabet River — and a personal point of pride for myself. We had received reports of their arrival in the beginning of April — this was expected. What was unexpected was the news that they had set up camp on the nesting platform rather than the tree that has been the nest site for over a decade now.
We’ve known that the nest site was in peril for several years. After about a 3 year wait due to warm weather we were finally able to get a team out on the ice in February 2007 and erect an alternate platform (I’m the dorky looking one in the red jacket). By “we” I mean folks at OAR and Mass Fish & Wildlife, the latter did most of the heavy lifting. There were no guarantees that the birds would take to the platform, and while they treated it as a roosting spot the past two years there were no signs of treating it as a nest.
One can only assume that the Osprey sensed the old tree was near failure and essentially moved the nest to this new platform (we’ve been fearing that the tree would fail while an active nest was there — a definite setting for a tragedy).
I’d like to say I purposely stayed away the past month to make sure there were no disturbances, and I’m sure that factored into my absence there the past month, but they now appear quite confident on the nest and were not alarmed at all when I came to photograph them (at a very respectful distance). We’ll start visiting more frequently now, looking for some hatched eggs — having a successful nest this year will put a lot of smiles on the faces of the many people who helped keep this important nest site viable for years to come.
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by Dave
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