Osprey Information

An osprey is a bird of prey, like an eagle.  They mostly eat fish, making them carnivorous.  Ospreys catch food by flying above the water looking for fish.  When they spot a fish, they dive head first.  Then at the last second, they pull up and catch the fish with their talons. 

Click here to watch a video Matt took of an osprey catching a fish at Moshup Beach near the Gay Head Cliffs in Martha's Vineyard

This is a picture of Matt and Noah, our guest researchers.

Click below to watch a professional video of Ospreys catching fish: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA3LtXnNIto

Ospreys have a wing span of 5-6 feet, and their body is 21-23 inches long.  They weigh about 3 to 4 ½ pounds.  You call tell the difference between an eagle and an osprey by looking for the white belly, unique to the osprey. 

Ospreys make nests near water on tall things such as poles.  They usually lay three eggs.  Juvenile ospreys fledge the nest at about 7-8 weeks.  Ospreys migrate in the late fall.  The father leaves the nest first.  Then the mother leaves the nest.  The juveniles leave the nest last.  They all migrate alone.  The trip is very dangerous and some die.  This is often due to starvation and weather.  Ospreys can live up to 30 years.

I completed this project to help study how making nesting poles for Ospreys and not using DDT effected the osprey population and to make sure they are still doing okay.  DDT is a chemical that was used to spray crops from 1950-1980.  DDT softened the shells of several birds of prey, engaging their species.  

We got our information by reading the book, Code Name KC: A True Account of One Osprey and reading the articles on National Geographic. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/osprey/

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/bald-eagle/

Osprey Project

        We went to find out how many juvenile ospreys fledged or are able to fly.  You can tell an osprey is a juvenile by looking at its feathers.  Juvenile osprey’s feathers have white on them.

        The first nest we went to observe was at the Tisbury Water Works.  It was really exciting because there was a juvenile that had not fledged and two adult ospreys.  One adult osprey caught a baby bird and its mother was chasing the osprey.  

Tisbury Water Works

This adult has a bird in his claws

        The next nest was at the Vineyard Haven baseball field.  We saw one adult osprey bringing sticks to the nest.  We did not see any juveniles, but we did see other little birds that kept landing on the osprey nest.  I was wondering if the birds made their nests on the osprey’s nest.    If you know why these small birds were on the osprey nest, please leave a comment.  

This osprey is bringing sticks to the nest at the Vineyard Haven baseball field.

       The third nest we went to observe was at the Vineyard Haven Power Plant.  There were no ospreys and barely a nest.

Vineyard Haven Power Plant Nest

        The next time we went out, we started at Couch Cottage near Stonewall Beach.  We did not see any osprey.  

Nest at Couch Cottage

       The fifth nest we went to was at the Cedar Tree Neck Sanctuary.  I saw an osprey from far away.  It looked like a speck.  We zoomed in with the camera to take this picture.  Our hike to the nest was beautiful.  You walk on the beach and by a pond to get to the osprey nest.  I found a nest and it was super far away.  You had to look through a bunch of tree branches.  We saw one adult on the nest.  We are not sure if the adult osprey we saw when we came in was the same adult on the nest or another one. 

This osprey was really far away.

Nest at Cedar Neck Tree

 

This is a great place to take a hike.

        On the third day we went to the Edgartown High School.  There were no ospreys on the nest.  

Edgartown High School Nest

      Then we went to the Lagoon Water Works.  We think we saw one juvenile and one adult, but we are not 100% sure if there is a juvenile because we were observing them from across the Upper Lagoon Pond.  

Lagoon Water Works Nest

        We attempted to observe the nest at the Edgartown Cell Tower, but we could not get far enough away to observe the nest.  The last nest we went to was a Felix Neck.  We saw one adult perched on another nesting pole and one adult in the nest. 

Felix Neck

Felix Neck

        My conclusion is that a lot of the juvenile ospreys already fledged.  I thought it was interesting to help with research projects at Felix Neck.  Check back next week to learn about ospreys. 

Osprey Project

I am doing an osprey project.  For the project, we are collecting data for the Felix Neck Mass Audubon Society.  We are visiting osprey nests to collect data to learn about how the ospreys are doing.  

Please check back in a few weeks to learn more about ospreys. 

Matt took these pictures for my blog.

How did the box turtle get his name?

To read more about the animals at the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, click here http://greysadventures.blogspot.com/2015/07/teaching-at-felix-neck-wildlife.html

Teaching at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary

On Monday, Val and Philip, employees at Felix Neck, taught me how to teach Tank Time.  First they taught me how to feed the live animals inside the wildlife sanctuary.  Philip, Val, and I went hunting for worms.  We also got mealworms, squid, and apples ready.  During Philip's talk, we fed the animals.  

On Wednesday, I got to team teach Tank Time with Val.  The first thing I taught the visitors about was the eastern box turtle.  I got to hold the turtle while talking.  

Do any of you know why a box turtle is called a box turtle?  If you know the answer, leave a comment.  I will post the correct answer in a couple of days.  

You should watch this video of the turtle eating his food.  

Then we moved on to the spotted turtle.  It was once put on the endangered watch list but because of good conservation and educational practices the spotted turtle population has been brought back.  

This is me feeding the spotted turtle.

 Now on to the corn snake.  The corn snake is not native to Martha's Vineyard, but the milk snake is.  The corn snake is the same size and has the same coloration as the corn snake.  

The next animal I taught the visitors about was the green frog.  It is a sight eater and will not know their food is there unless it is moving.  

Check out this video

The last tank was the salt water tank.  In this tank there were blue crabs, sand eels, pipefish, black-fingered mud crabs, Asian shore crabs, green crabs, flat-clawed hermit crabs, long-clawed hermit crabs, periwinkles, and silver sided minnows.  They all ate squid.

I enjoyed teaching the visitors about the animals.  My favorite part was holding the box turtle.  If you live on Martha's Vineyard or are visiting Martha's Vineyard, I recommend you check out Felix Neck's Tank Time or their other programs.  http://www.massaudubon.org/learn 

Vineyard Gazette

I was in the Vineyard Gazette because I went to Felix Neck to find out what kind of sea creature we found at Menemsha.   

You can also read this article at: http://mvgazette.com/news/2014/08/06/novice-naturalist?k=vg53c3d502f3e31