Where'd the Osprey go?

You’ll recall several years ago, we had an osprey begin to build a nest on a critical distribution pole in the Capital Prairie area. In order to mitigate this risk to the electric distribution system and the bird, we built a nesting platform. (backstory here)

Last year, the birds moved in and began building a nest.
This spring, they returned as normal and began settling in…

…but then they disappeared!

Where did they go? About a month later, Ali noticed an osprey flying around the old pole lot at the Port of Shelton. Sure enough, a new osprey nest had appeared, built on a customer-owned light pole! Several weeks later, we sent the drone to do a quick investigation:
I SPY AN EGG!

NOTE: we were only in the area with the drone for a total of about three minutes, to confirm that there were indeed eggs in the nest.

So, what now? While we’re happy that our osprey friends have found a spot to hatch their young, we’re bummed that it’s not on our pole, with live streaming capabilities. Once they abandon this new nest for the season, we’ll reach out to the Port of Shelton to ask if they’d like assistance removing it. Hopefully, the osprey will choose to return to our platform next year. On the other hand, our nest doesn’t have a built-in incubator, so I can see why they’d choose the upgrade!

If this nesting pair chooses not to return to our platform, we still did the right thing by remaining in compliance with environmental laws and mitigating the risk to the birds and distribution system by setting the osprey pole when we did.

If you have any questions, ask Ali, Justin, or Lynn.