The Relocation an Osprey Pair
It takes a village, they say, to raise a child. So it does to relocate an osprey pair.
This story begins in spring last year, when a pair of osprey constructed their residence atop a three-story chimney of a home in Resthaven in Southern Anne Arundel County. After the construction of the large, freeform contemporary and the raising of their brood, off they went to their second home for the winter. Prior to their departure, however, these tenants saw no need to clean the large amounts of graffiti left on the siding and decks below the nest.
Fastforward mid-March this year. The same pair return to the same address to find their belongings gone and a blank canvas. Construction begins again. Another mega-mansion is nearing completion when the landlords below, remembering their last experience, attempt an eviction complete with chicken wire as a deterrent. Unruffled, the pair remains and tries to remodel. Another try at eviction follows, and again a defiant pair remain.
Witnessing this saga was a small group of concerned citizens. A relocation plan of sorts was hatched, or so we thought.
First, a three-foot-square osprey platform was constructed from recycled material, with the exception of the hardware cloth for the bottom. Second, a used section of a commercial fishnet pole was dragged out of the water, cut and loaded on a pickup by a local Deale fisherman and railway owner. Third, a small boat was commandered from another neighbor. Yet another neighbor allowed the use of his yard and pier as a staging area for this operation.
A point was sharpened with a chainsaw on the now 22-foot-long osprey pole. The last and most difficult part was the enlistment of the required number of able-bodied people to float the pole across a small gut and around the edge of the marsh to the confluence of Parkers Creek and the Bay.
A local carpenter secured the help of a longtime friend and Maryland Department of Natural Resources officer, who donated three hours of his off-time, and another friend, a young Army veteran. All this help was able to be gathered because of this carpenter’s innate ability to bend the truth about the toughness of the project, including answering no to the question am I going to get wet?
We floated the pole around the cape with a kayak in tow loaded with platform, hardware, tools and a photographer. At our destination the plan was honed. First we positioned the pole horizontally to exacting specifications. Then we attached the platform with screws through one end of four metal strap anchors, one on each side of the platform, with the other end of each attached to the pole.
As suggested by the photographer, a “starter kit of twigs” was added. Then all that remained was the raising and the jumpin’ down of the pole.
With DNR and the carpenter at the platform end, soon to be top of the pole, and Army with one end of a length of line in his hands, the other end attached to the soon-to-be top, we started. We lifted the pole as high as possible and, hand over hand, started our march toward vertical. Don’t try this at home, folks. A few minutes later to our amazement, vertical.
Then came the easiest part. Jumpin the pole down, a phrase borrowed from my railway buddy, who explained in detail the procedure. One end of a four-by-four post is lashed, close to the bottom, at a slight angle, to the now vertical 22-foot pole. The other end rests just onshore on solid ground. Army, the youngest by 25 years, is instructed to walk up the incline of the four-by-four and, holding on to the pole, start jumping on the four-by-four close to the pole.
As we held the pole vertical we watched as it slowly started its decent south at about one-eighth-inch per jump.
We raised and relashd the four-by-four to the pole about every 18 inches of vertical decent.
In about one hour, the platform on the 22-foot pole was now about 16 feet above sea level. At this point, we looked at each other as if it were just another day at work. A couple more pictures, load the tools and the photographer and back across the gut to the start.
But the early bird gets the worm, or in this case the nest. Apparently another pair of osprey were up earlier than the evicted pair we were doing all this for. Oh well.
As one of the concerned bunch said “Hey, they must have been homeless, too.”