Just like all of the birds who use the Barnegat Inlet, our osprey are a big beneficiary of Plover Park. They now finally have some safe, open space to land in, eat their fresh fish, get a drink, or take a nice bath in the big pond without being flushed by people. The dense shrubs that were there before provided no place at all for them to land, so they had to fly all the way across the state park before even having an option to rest.
Unfortunately, the exclosures we use to fence and protect some piping plover nests are creating tempting but inappropriate perches for them. While osprey don’t eat birds so are not a predator of the plovers, the plovers don’t know that and have tiny heart attacks when a massive osprey perches right above them and their precious eggs. The exclosures do have bird spikes on them, but apparently they are no match for the massive, battle hardened feet and talons of the osprey!
Yesterday morning I happened to be reviewing Irwin’s cam when I found Irwin’s unbanded mate having a tiny heart attack and doing the broken-wing defense inside her exclosure. That could only mean one thing: something was sitting on top of it.
I use two cameras at every exclosure in the park; an external camera which watches for ground and avian predators approaching the exclosure, and an internal camera for monitoring smaller predators like ghost crabs and mink inside. Each setup also has a spotlight, siren, and two-way talk which I can use to haze them if need be.
In the following video you can see me try to haze an osprey off an exclosure for the first time. While mammals like fox and raccoon are very sensitive to the sudden noises, the birds are more visually triggered. I could not walk within a quarter mile of this exclosure without flushing that osprey… but as you can see, using the both the siren and my voice from the external rig (which is only about 25 feet away) clearly got the osprey’s attention, but didn’t quite do the trick. The wind ripping in the exact opposite direction wasn’t helping carry the sound either.
Fortunately, I finally figured out that I should be trigging the alarms inside the exclosure because, technically, that’s where the osprey was. Victory at last. Sorry Ms. Osprey, you know I love you, especially when you visit the park, but the exclosures are not for you!
Enjoy the video below which is a compilation of clips from the different cameras as I struggle to haze the poor osprey so Irwin’s mate can get back on the eggs. It’s so sad to see her desperately doing her best broken-wing defense, all around the exclosure, while the osprey barely notices. Maybe they need to learn a “wounded fish” defense! It’s also sad to watch me do my little siren defense, all around the exclosure, while the osprey barely notices.
All of this work in the park is funded by The Little Egg Foundation. If you’d like to sponsor a nest in the park and help us keep the park a safe and pleasant place for all of our favorite birds, and creatively push the boundaries of what’s possible, please donate! Because clearly, we need a third cam at every nest: an Osprey Cam!
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