Rediscovering home: Magnificent flyers

He soared in on crooked wings spreading about five feet across the blue sky, clutching in his talons a branch with black moss hanging from it like a shaggy haircut.  

The male osprey landed deftly on top of a power pole about 20 yards from the house, setting down the first piece of what they thought would be their home. The female – osprey usually mate for life – arrived shortly afterward.   

Their staccato chirp-whistles rang out as they set about their work.  

The birds are a bit traditional. The male brings “home the bacon” (nesting material) and the female “arranges the furniture.”   

These magnificent flyers entertained us for about a week, before, inevitably, the power company came to take it down.  These “fishin’ chickens” resembled hens sitting on the pole.  Fish provide 99 percent of their diet.   A study found the birds will nest up to 20 kilometers from their feeding source. Our house may be up to a half mile from the river. 

Their hen-like appearance on the nest is deceiving.  Adults only weigh two to four pounds, while an adult eagle can weigh over 20 pounds, but their massive wings make the birds seem plump. 

I wanted to jeer the Northwestern Energy workers who came with their lift truck and their insulated stick, and pushed the nesting material to the ground, but they were doing God’s work.

Our entertainment was at the birds’ peril.  As far as I can determine, no one knows how many osprey or their chicks die from electrocution or, even more likely, by their nest catching fire.  But plenty of reports exist out there of these fires killing birds and causing power outages, so no denying the danger. 

“We rely on members of the public to let us know when ospreys are building nests on power poles,” said Jo Dee Black, a Northwestern spokeswoman. 

The power outages certainly do not help the bottom line, and dead osprey and other large birds of prey, are not good for the public image. Black insists Northwestern is invested in protecting a bird that was once almost eradicated by DDT, a insecticide that accumulated in the fish ospreys eat.   

“[W]e, as a society, have worked so hard” to bring the birds back, “we want that to be successful,” Black said. 

“The population has been expanding for decades,” said Kristina Smucker, Nongame Endangered or Threatened Specialist Chief for the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.  A DDT ban and the erection of platform towers along waterways have spurred the recovery.  Several towers are on the other side of the river from our ranch. 

“They love those platforms.”  Smucker explained, “The thing about ospreys, they want to build nests on the tallest thing around.” 

Both Smucker and Black had another ask – watch out for the baling twine.  The twine is known to strangle the birds, especially chicks.  So, please pick up the twine and put it in a  closed container. 

The birds are remarkably flexible in their quest for nesting material, according to the stuff that fell to the ground both before and after the nest was removed.  One morning, the female osprey, I believe, launched off the pole and, instead of taking to the air, headed straight to the ground near the horse shed. She hit the ground and circled back to the nest clutching a round fuzzy object I thought might be a rodent.  They will occasionally eat a small mammal.  After seeing some “horse pucks” below the nest, I realized it was not a rodent.  Seat cushions, I presume. 

Watching an osprey crash into the water is a sight to behold.  “Talons first, but it’s like the whole body goes in,” Smucker said.  “They have a lot of shoulder flexibility that allows their wings to roll back with the impact.” 

While osprey generally mate for life and will return to the same nests.  However, Smucker says, a male or female may lose its mate and try to steal another.  My nephew and I watched the two birds sitting nonchalantly on the nest one morning, when all of sudden a third arrived, buzzing one of the birds off the pole and, possibly,  reclaiming his/her mate.  The birds are difficult to tell apart, so I do not know whether the original mate was on the nest or an interloper, and who won.

We fantasized about erecting a platform near the pole ourselves and moving the nest.  If even possible, would they move? Smucker said the birds are amenable to having their nest moved nearby.  “If you build it, they will come.”

An inactive nest or one where there are no eggs or chicks can be destroyed.  However, if eggs or chicks are present, the nest can be moved only if a federal permit is obtained.

Black reported Northwestern obtained a permit in the last couple years to move a nest with eggs on a power pole near Bozeman.  The move “had not been done before” by the company, and it was not known if it “would harm the eggs just by moving them.” Everyone was excited when the chicks appeared in the relocated nest.

Smucker said power companies will sometimes erect the towers and move nests without eggs or chicks if the birds are stubborn about rebuilding their nests.  The companies don’t want dead birds or outages, she explained.  As the population continues to expand, conflicts are destined to increase.   “Our” nest was the first of three in the area the workers were to take down that day.

During my youth, we had no ospreys on the ranch, but we had two birds that I rarely see today – Meadowlarks and Kildeer. We, of course, killed animals when there was a purpose, but killing something for fun was waste in the minds of my parents.  If mom knew I had violated her command and killed a few birds, she would have been livid. 

We were allowed to shoot birds that were eating half of the cherries on my grandpa’s trees next door and wasting the rest, which drove Charlie Dobesh crazy.  I admit it was also some fun.  One day, grandpa’s cable went out.  The repairman found the cable full of birdshot.

Now, I exclaim loudly as I see a killdeer for the first time on the ranch in a long time.  A lasting memory is of these ringed birds running out ahead of us, shouting “kill deer, kill deer, kill deer” in effort to lure us away from its ground nest camouflaged among the pasture grasses and rocks. They would not fly to save themselves until the very last moment. 

    A grumpy-looking male lays a stick on the nests. Osprey nests are continually being enlarged and can weigh more than 300 pounds
  

    An osprey looks askance at the plastic falcon placed on the pole in effort to scare the ospreys. The falcon only appeared to just get in the way.