On August 26, I returned to my automobile after a haircut in downtown Delaware and was spiritually inspired when I glanced up to see an Osprey gliding over a very busy city full of traffic and pedestrians. The movement of the bird’s head told me that the passing visitor was taking it all in. I estimated that its flight path was little more than one hundred feet above the hustle and bustle below, but within its ability to keep track of the Olentangy River that flowed parallel to Route 23 to the east. Two turkey vultures were also gliding within a hundred yards of the fish hawk. I’m sure that all three large birds knew what they were doing as the hot pavement, brick buildings, and metal roofs were providing needed convection currents to lift them into their flight paths. I smiled at the sight as I hoped the fish hawk was one “of ours.”
A Little History
The quest to attract nesting Osprey in Delaware County began in April 1982 when one platform was installed in Red Cross Cove in Delaware State Park. Unfortunately, the original platform now stands in a wooded habitat avoided by fish hawks. However, since 1997, seven platforms have sprouted in very productive habitats to add eleven Ospreys in 2014 to 89 previously produced since 2001. That’s one hundred fish hawks fledged from man-made platforms in Delaware County during the last 14 nesting seasons.
2014 Ospreys
Delaware Lake
At Delaware Lake, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s platform fledged three fish hawks. The platform is visible from the State Route 229 bridge that crosses over the Olentangy River where it enters the lake.
Alum Creek
For the first time since platforms were erected in Alum Creek Lake, three platforms produced Osprey rather than two. At the northern extreme of Alum Creek Lake, one Osprey fledged from the project’s most northern platform along Hogback Road, AC-1. Two fledged from AC-3, and the most southern of four platforms, AC-4, raised three Ospreys.
A fourth pair of Ospreys seemed to have claimed AC-2 and were quietly accepted by the other pairs. This harmony seemed strange to me, but toward the end of the season, I watched the pair as they perched with only one foot of space between them. Their backs were the same shade of brown, milk chocolate, the shade of females. I describe males as dark chocolate.
A pair of Canada Geese had hatched eggs on AC-2 earlier in the season and after their goslings dropped to the lake below, two Ospreys soon claimed the platform. Looking back, I had never seen any male-female behaviors from the fourth pair of fish hawks, but unmated birds, called floaters, will sometimes form bonds with the same sex so two sets of eyes can watch for trouble. With luck, four of each sex will show up next season so all four platforms can produce young.
Hoover Reservoir
Ospreys claimed both platforms on Hoover Reservoir that are visible from the boardwalk at Galena. H-2’s nest failed after three nestlings were counted and photographed at safe distances, while two credible observers counted two fledglings from H-1 directly south of the boardwalk.
Other Delaware County Locations
At least two cell phone towers in Delaware County became homes for fish hawks. Three Ospreys fledged from a tower near the intersection of Leonardsburg and Horseshoe roads along the eastern edge of the Delaware Wildlife Area. I watched the nest from a hunter’s parking lot north of the tower and off the west side of Horseshoe Road just north of Whipple Road.
At least two fish hawks fledged from a cell phone tower behind the Flying-J Truck Stop at the intersection of I-71 and Routes 36 and 37. I would watch the truck stop’s tower nest from a field’s access lot along Wilson Road east of the cell tower. Go to Google Earth and count the borrow pits around the massive intersection. I have seen fishing families park at McDonald’s to access their hobby, and the borrow pits also help to feed nesting Osprey every year.
I admit that due to positive and negative distractions this year, I did not watch Osprey as much as in past years, but I am fairly confident that the values stated above are accurate. All platforms required a spotting scope for enjoyable watching and I look forward to 2015.
Raptor on!