March 18, 1982 - The Osprey ReturnsYears
port I kept a record of when the ospreys
returned each year on the door of my office.
Then when I returned to school one fall the
office was painted and my records were
lost. What I can remember from that list is
that March 21 was the average day for their
return to our island. Like the record on the
door, the one nest I used for my
observations year after year finally
disappeared along with the bird.
It was a typical osprey's nest, high in an
old dead oak on the edge of Moore's Woods,
just off the Main Road. When I saw that bird
in the spring sitting by its nest, a special
feeling flowed through me. Like the first
Maypinks, the first catch of flounder or the
taste of fresh asparagus, it meant my world
was turning the way it should be. Another
year had worked itself out.
The year my osprey didn't return was
during those dark years when the osprey
was losing its battle for survival. It was
those years when we were learning about
pesticides. It was the time of awakening of
how tremendously complicated our simple
world was becoming. Pesticides, air
pollution, fragile ground water, loss of
wetlands and a thousand other
environmental concerns were surfacing.
Old timers can vouch for the abundance
of our once healthy osprey populations. It
seemed everywhere there were osprey
nests. Along the great Sound banks north of
Roanoke in Riverhead. All along the
Peconic Bays on both the north and south
shore they built their bulky nests with the
greatest concentration on the East End.
Great Decrease in Population
On Gardiner's Island alone, Roy Wilcox
reported 306 nests in 1940. During the 50's
and 60's most of us thought the osprey was
on the way to extinction because of the
tremendous drop in population, below 30
nests on Gardiners Island alone. Yet, last
year according to the official records of
Mike Schiebel, head of endangered species
here on Long Island, the ospreys are
making a steady comeback -- thanks to new
rules about pesticides and a new awakening
by the public in general.
Ospreys returning often find their nesting
sites invaded by man. The remaining old
trees that held nests soon decay and fall,
leaving few trees for the birds to build in.
All these contribute to the problem of
nesting sites for the osprey. These and
many other reasons make it necessary for
man to improvise by building nesting
platforms. These are put up in suitable
locations away from man's activities and
built stable enough to withstand the
pressures of time.
Bob Gloria of Orient has spearheaded
this movement out east and with help from
farmers, who donate old galvanized
irrigation pipe for the pole, he has brought
many new ospreys to the area. Each year
we add new platforms with their man -made
starter nests to attract them. Through the
years our design has improved and this
year we are experimenting with a platform
out in the middle of a large boggy marsh. If
this works in this soft footing, it will open up
SECOND SECTION
the Suffolk Timeo
The Osprey Returns
ago when I was teaching at Green
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a whole new nesting area for the ospreys.
Bunkers Once Food for Osprey
Years ago there used to be great schools
of bunkers in the waters around Long
Island. It was these fish that made up a good
part of the osprey's food supply. Many can
remember the fleets of bunker boats that
once worked the waters around our area.
Even the very street I live on, Skunk Lane,
owes its name to a group of farmers who
called themselves the Skunks and hauled
nets for bunkers down on the causeway
leading to Nassau Point years ago. Bunkers
were spread on the fields for fertilizer in
those early days and each spring teams
would compete for the greatest haul. Much
sweat and brawn went into rowing the nets
out and around the great churning schools
and then the laborious task of hauling in the
nets on the beach and loading the fish onto
the horse -drawn wagon to be taken to the
fields. On a hot summer day spreading the
fields with dead fish must have been rugged
duty for sure. But then that was their
fertilizer and it came free from the sea.
The bunker is a member of the herring
family, an oily fish that few people eat. Yet
as a kid I can remember cooking one on the
beach. After I got through the maze of
bones, the meat wasn't half bad, but
perhaps it was a young boy's imagination
that anything he cooked on an open fire
tasted good.
Bunkers are still around, but nothing like
the old days. The bunker boats are gone,
which means there are not the great schools
that made it worthwhile years ago. Every
once in a while you'll see a dark mass with a
slight ripple above it milling about our
bays. These are the bunkers. Many felt
their decrease was another reason for the
osprey's decline. That theory surely makes
sense to me. Underwater bunkers swim in a
tight formation, mouths open, filtering the
rich nutrients in our water. They have no
teeth and therefore do not take a hook and
line as other fish do. When seen
underwater, they are the closest thing we
have to a Jacques Costeau extravaganza.
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THE INCOME TAX PEOPLE
MARCH 18,1982
OSPREY - -Many of our ospreys spend their winter months in South
America. Look for their return along our creeks and bays around the 21st
of this month. Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
Let's hope we've learned some lessons
from the decline of the osprey and its slow
return. Years ago we lived in ignorance;
today we are informed. With knowledge
and the will to do what is right, our world
will blossom'and keep on returning to us the
delicate fragrance of maypinks in the
woods, a spring run of flounder for dinner
and ospreys to delight our heart and spirit.
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