April 29, 1962 - Long Island OspreysLong Island osprey
Exclusive Sunday Review Sketch by Dennis Puleston of Brookhaven
Focus on Nature
Any follower of birding here
on Long Island will immediately
know the name of today's guest
writer, LeRoy Wilcox of Speonk.
Being one of the best authorities
,on the osprey, we are indeed pri-
vileged to have him share with
us his personal knowledge of this
magnificent bird." P S
For great many years Gardin-
er's Island has been known as
the home of the largest nesting
colony of of or Fish Hawks
in the world. To those bird stu-
dents who have been there, the
mere mention of this historic is-
land brings back memory of a
landscape dotted with trees con-
taining the large nests of these
birds. It is an inspiring and pic-
turesque sight to see these large
hawks making their dives, feet
first, into the water to capture
fish as food for themselves and
for their young.
This nesting colony is unique
in the fact that nearly 100 nests
are built on or close to the ground.
For several years there were two
ground nests at Orient and one at
Jessup's Neck, Noyac, but these
disappeared at least 15 years ago.
Because of this colony three re-
cords have been established in
the annals of bird banding in the
U.S., namely, the banding of the
first Osprey in the U.S., for many
years one of these Ospreys was
the oldest bird in the U.S. and in
33 years of banding on Gardiners
I have succeeded in placing more
bands on these birds than any
other bander in the U.S.
Mentioned In 1791
Probably the first mention of
these Ospreys is found in the
Diary of John Lyon Gardiner
under date of March 20, 1791 at
which time he records the arrival
of the first ones back to their nest-
ing grounds for that year. He was
the Seventh Proprietor of this is-
land of 3000 acres from 1774 to
1816. He gives some observations
on the habits of these birds for
the year 1810, stating that he be-
lieved there were 300 nests on the
island at that time.
We have estimated there were
about 300 nests there as recently
as 20 years ago but there are cer-
tainly not, that many now. There
has been a big decline in the
numbers of these nesting birds in
the last 10 to 15 years, partly due
to the tremendous numbers of
nesting Herring Gulls on Gardin-
ers. The gulls have taken over
for their nesting grounds nearly
the entire areas on the north and
south ends of Gardiners which
was formerly where most of the
grounds nests of the Ospreys were
located. There may be other fac-
tors involved as there has been a
big decline at Orient where there
are no nesting gulls to disturb
the Ospreys and no young have
been raised there for the past
three seasons.
In 1940 Roy Latham of Orient
and I estimated 306 nests on Gar-
diners, 79 nests on the north fork
from Riverhead to Orient, 41 nests
on Shelter Island, 68 nests on the
south fork from East Moriches to
Montauk for a total of approxi-
mately 494 nests for all of L I.
World Renowned
Many ornithologists from the
U.S. as well as from foreign
countries have visited Gardiner's
Island and written about this
world renowned colony. Capt
Knight of England wrote an arti-
cle on these Ospreys for the Na-
tional Geographic Magazine and
took four young back to England
where they had become extinct
hoping this introduction would be
successful but apparently it was
not so. My good friend, Edward
Cleaves, of Staten Island the na-
tionally known wild life photo-
grapher and Francis Harper each
banded two young on Gardiners
in 1911, the first Ospreys banded
in the U.S. One young that
Cleaves banded on June 19, 1914,
on Gardiners was found dead
there on June 1, 1935, with it's
foot caught in a tree. This was
the oldest known bird in the U.S.
for many years.
My first introduction to these
inspiring birds of Gardiner's Is-
land occurred on July 20, 1928,
when I was invited to accompany
a party headed by the late Dr
Frank Overton of Patchogue, edi-
tor of the N Y State Medical
Journal and probably Long Is-
lands best known wild life photo-
grapher. Since that first trip I
have been going back there al-
most annually to band these birds
for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Ser-
vice. To date I have banded 1,336
of these birds, which is probably
the largest number banded by any
bander in the world. A total of
1993 have been banded on Long
Island, which is about one -half
of all banded in the U.S. About
11% of the total banded have been
reported later as returns or re-
coveries. A good proportion of
these were reported as shot a]-
by Paul Stoutenburgh
though the bird is protected by
law in most States.
Unusual Objects
The nests, usually built from
about one to four feet high, at
times contain unusual objects
brought there by the nesting birds
to add bulk. Probably the most
unusual was an unopened box of
church envelopes of the Orient
Methodist Church with a mission-
ary slogan of "money hath
wings ".
This bird does not nest south
of the U.S. but some one - vear -
old nonbreeding individuals re-
main in Central or South America
during the nesting season here. It
is doubtful if they nest until at
least two years old.
Time alone will reveal whether
these birds will ever make a
comeback to their former num-
bers. I would make an argent
plea for the protection of these
birds - that hunters not shoot
them, that farmers not destroy
their nesting trees and that the
lighting companies rwA shoot thos
that nest on their poles.
FIELD OBSERVATIONS
Roy Latham reports:
Orient -April 15
Bluebird (2)
Upland Plover
Orient -April 20
Savannah Sparrow (10)
Cardinal
Screech Owl
Lawrence Ernest reports:
Southampton — April 14
Prairie Horned Lark
Southampton — April 15
Ruby Crowned Kinglets (2)
\fetus — April 16
Commom Tern
North Sea — April If
Snowy Egret
Soud ampton — April 17
Cedar Waxwing
Olive Backed Thrush
Also saw:
13 Deer
2 Muskrats