Thank you for a great start to the 2013 monitoring season. We are receiving reports from all over the state of birds observed incubating. Also, to date we have reports of about eight new nest sites. Please keep an eye out for new nest sites, and if you don’t see it on our Google Earth Osprey Nest Site Map, then please email us. We update the map on a regular basis.
If you need to contact us about the Ospreys or the monitoring program, please email osprey@asri.org
Thank you.
Cheers
Eric Walsh
Osprey monitoring season has officially begun! While we welcome observations in March, the program requires observations every two weeks from April through the end of July. Many Osprey pairs are back, and mating has been observed at many nests. There are still some pairs in transit or pairs that haven’t settled on a nest yet. So if you haven’t seen any yet, keep looking!
Unfortunately I will no longer be managing the RI Osprey Monitoring program as I am moving to a position at another organization. While we are in between volunteer coordinators, please direct osprey questions to osprey@asri.org. Eric Walsh, the co-manager of the project, will be monitoring that email address. Eric is a volunteer who also works full time and is pursuing a master’s degree, so he may not be able to respond to every email. Please continue to submit your observations, and thank you for your patience during this transition!
I have really enjoyed leading this project. Enjoy the ospreys this season and for many more years to come!
July Lewis
We’ve gotten many reports now of ospreys returning to RI, with sightings at nests in Block Island, Narragansett, Newport, Warren, and more. But they are not all back, so if you still don’t have any at a nest you are watching, don’t worry! They will continue to return over the next couple of weeks.
Ospreys are on the move and the RI Osprey Monitoring Project is getting ready for their return! Our volunteer orientation will be this Saturday, March 9 from 10 AM to 11:30 AM at the Environmental Education Center, 1401 Hope St., Bristol, RI. This is for registered volunteers only. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact July Lewis at 401-949-5454 x3044 or jlewis@asri.org.
The Osprey Monitoring Program has generated some local buzz. Please check out these two great articles on the project, one in the East Bay Newspaper and the other in the Providence Business News
The 2012 Osprey Report is complete! It was a record year, with 178 fledged young. The previous record was 171, in 2010. Huge thanks go out to all the osprey monitors who made this report possible. We are grateful to RIDEM, who initiated the project in 1978 and whose support has enabled Audubon to continue monitoring the Rhode Island Osprey population. Thanks also to osprey interns Kaitlin Pizzi, Tegan Mortimer and Jesse Ryan Taylor who traveled all over the state getting GPS coordinates for the nests and writing descriptions and detailed directions for each location. Finally, thanks to Eric Walsh, co-manager of the Rhode Island Osprey Monitoring program, for his tireless volunteer work and technical expertise in managing the project.
The ospreys are now in their winter homes in South America, and we look forward to their return in March. If you are interested in becoming an osprey monitor, please contact me at jlewis@asri.org for more information. If you would like to donate to support Audubon and the Rhode Island Osprey Monitoring Program, please click here.
Thank you for supporting the Rhode Island Osprey Monitoring Program!
July Lewis
Volunteer Coordinator
Audubon Society of Rhode Island
Ospreys have migrated south for the winter, and Audubon is compiling the data we collected over the 2012 Rhode Island breeding season. We expect to have the Osprey Report published by the end of November. We look forward to sharing our findings with you soon! In the meantime, check out Rob Bierregaard’s page on the 2012 Osprey migration. You can follow his tagged birds on their migration south and their feeding activities over the winter. Before you know it, it will be March and the Ospreys will be returning!
By now, many of this year’s osprey chicks have fledged. Our official monitoring is now drawing to a close as these young birds leave the nest. Huge thanks to the Osprey monitors for months of data collection and observation! Thanks also to the Osprey interns Kaitlin, Jesse, and Tegan, whose dedicated surveying has provided us with data to greatly improve the accuracy of our map and database.
In the months ahead we will busily compiling this year’s data and creating the 2012 report. Please visit this site for updates, and thanks for your dedication to Osprey conservation!
July Lewis & Eric Walsh
While many osprey pairs are still incubating, we are getting increasing reports of chicks! If you have a good view of a thin nest, you may be able to see them as soon as they hatch. But for most nests, you will have to wait until they get bigger to know for sure. Clues to knowing if the eggs have hatched lie in the behavior of the adults. The female will not spend so much of her time hunkered down, but will stand up in the nest and attend to the chicks. When a fish is brought in, you may be able to see one of the parents tearing off bits and feeding them to the unseen chicks. For some very difficult to see nests, you may not get a good count until the young ones are fully feathered and standing on the edge of the nest.
In other news, our osprey program interns–Tegan, Kaitlin and Jesse–have begun the monumental task of visiting every osprey nesting site in the state. For each site, they will describe the structure and the condition of the structure, take GPS coordinates, create detailed directions to the site, and record osprey activity. Their regional perspective combined with volunteers’ local knowledge will help create a much more detailed, accurate osprey map and database.
Enjoy watching for osprey chicks!
July Lewis
Thanks to osprey monitors, we are getting reports coming in all over the state. Many ospreys are incubating eggs at this point. We really appreciate the reports every other week!
At this point it is important to remember that different ospreys have different tolerance levels for human approach. If an osprey pair spooks and flies off as you approach the nest, back off until they settle down. Eggs need to be kept warm on cold days (or shaded, on hot days) for successful hatching. It is best to monitor on mild days when the risk to developing eggs is not so high.
Happy osprey watching!
July Lewis
