NATURALIST'S 



NOTEBOOK 



LEFT: Mother osprey tends to new chicks in the nest atop a tall pine overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. 

 RIGHT: These protective parents are wary of a photgrapher's visit in a cherry picker to capture a family portrait. A Web cam also documented their progress. 



Scientists found that DDT introduced into 

 the food chain and taken into the birds' systems 

 was causing them to lay thin-shelled eggs that 

 broke easily during laying or when sat upon by 

 parent birds. 



In fact, the brown pelican and bald eagle 

 were driven to the edge of extinction. Popula- 

 tions of other fish-eating birds, including the 

 osprey, were plummeting in many areas of the 

 nation. 



Since the use of DDT in the U.S. was 

 banned in 1972, ospreys and many once-endan- 

 gered birds have been increasing in numbers. 



Now, the aquarium's living exhibit enables 

 the public to witness the ospre/s renaissance 

 first hand. With the installation of a camera near 

 the nest in 1 995, images have been relayed to 

 an aquarium monitor from first light of day until 

 sunset. Soon, the images will be posted on the 

 aquarium's Web site. 



"It's a wonderful teaching tool," saysTerri 

 Kirby Hathaway, former aquarium education 

 curator and now North Carolina Sea Grant ma- 

 rine education specialist. "I would tell the folks 

 watching the monitor, That's live from Roanoke 

 Island.' Their reaction was always one of surprise 

 when they realized they could step out the 

 nearby door and see the birds in the nest" 



The video captures and records the lifestyle 

 of the osprey, says Malat For one thing, they are 

 fastidious nestkeepers. To keep it pest-free, the 

 birds sidle to the edge of the nest to "projectile 



poop" — a fact Malat learned the hard way 

 when he first mounted the camera too close to 

 the nest 



And, Hathaway adds, "The ospreys 

 have used some pretty odd building materials 

 through the years — a fly swatter, a toilet brush, 

 a surgical glove and an aquarium brochure have 

 been woven into the nest along with the more 

 conventional twigs and moss." 



Ospreys are the picture of a devoted family 

 unit, Malat says. "Once the eggs hatch, the 

 attention of the male and the female are focused 

 on nurturing the chicks until they fledge. They 

 remain together in the nest until fall migration." 



Despite the "up close and personal" view 

 of osprey family life, the birds are not named. 

 "Nothing at the aquarium is named," Hathaway 

 notes. "Latin names are used to remind visitors 

 that these are wild animals and should be 

 respected and protected as such." 



ON THE REBOUND 



Ospreys, Pcmdion haliaetus, provide a great 

 wildlife conservation story, Hathaway says. "I 

 don't know the exact counts, but anecdotally, 

 there seems to be a lot more nesting along our 

 coast." 



Her observations are on target says Rob 

 Bierregaard, a professor of biology at the Uni- 

 versity of North Carolina at Charlotte. Osprey 

 populations in North Carolina are in good 

 shape. 



In fact, the osprey has made a remarkable 

 recovery from the DDT era across the continent. 

 Some 1 8,000 to 1 9,000 pairs have been docu- 

 mented in the lower 48 states, says Bierregaard, 

 who has been studying the East Coast osprey 

 since the 1 960s. 



Oddly, the osprey never made the federal 

 endangered species list because dramatic popu- 

 lation declines appeared to be regional rather 

 than countrywide, he notes. For example, by the 

 late 1 960s, the documented nesting pairs of New 

 England osprey between New York and Boston 

 had plummeted from 1 ,200 to 1 00. 



Scientists discovered that birds at the end 

 of long food chains made the most dramatic 

 population declines, because concentrations of 

 DDT multiply up the food chain. The effects were 

 not as devastating in areas where ospreys were at 

 the end of a short food chain. 



Now osprey populations are rebounding 

 in New England — including Martha's Vineyard 

 where Bierregaard began his ongoing studies. 

 In 1 969, he banded the last known nesting pair 

 of ospreys. Since then, the island's ospreys have 

 slowly recovered, with from 58 to 65 nesting 

 pairs each season and an average of 1 .2 success- 

 ful fledges per nest 



OSPREY ODDITIES 



Ospreys, he says, have a lot of evolutionary 

 smarts. For example, male offspring return to 

 nest close to where they were bom. Females, on 



28 EARLY SUMMER 2004 



