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March 27, 1997 - High-Tech Tracking of Elusive Osprey10A • The Suffo k`Ttrnes March 27, 1997 Nigh -Tech Tracking of Elusive Osprey Osprey, osprey, where have you been? With the first reports of ospreys back here on our East End, that ques- tion has always come up and in a vague way has been answered: "Somewhere south, perhaps in the Caribbean or even Brazil," but now there are satellite connections and we have proof positive of just where some of "our ospreys" spend their winter vacations. To learn more about this exciting story, Barbara and I revisited the vast Nature Conservancy's Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island this week and spent some time with the preserve director, Mike Laspia, who filled us in on the remarkable travels of three ospreys (two from Mashomack and one from another nest nearby) that have been fol- Focus lowed closely this year on their On travels via the Internet. Most of us have "our own Nature osprey" that we keep an eye on throughout the season from their by Paul first day of return, which is usual - Stoutenburgh ly around the middle of March on through their summer stay here. By watching them we learn much about these fascinating sea hawks and their behavior. You might even be lucky enough to see their spectacular 80- to 100 -foot dive into the water in their pursuit of a fish. They are not always on target and oftentimes have to try, and try again. A watchful eye on the nest can see the new growth in the young each week until they are almost as big as the parent birds. Then the young can be seen exercising their wings at the edge of the nest until they are ready to fly. Learning to fish is a long and tedious process, as the young would much rather be fed by their parents than drop into that cold and often unrewarding water. But slowly they learn the tricks of their trade. Hunger push- es them on to become master fishermen. This skill is nec- essary because their survival depends on it. Young Leave at Different Times By the middle of September, most of our ospreys have left for their wintering grounds down south. Mike told us that Mark Martell, principal researcher from the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, had trapped and fitted three ospreys from our area with tiny radio trans- mitters in hopes of following their annual migration south, along with other ospreys from Oregon and Min- nesota, as part of an extensive research project called "Highway to the Tropics." As I mentioned, the three New York ospreys are from our area: two from Mash- omack and the other from a nest just west of South Ferry on Shelter Island. The tagged Mashomack ospreys are an adult male (Mashomack Point nest) known as X7 and one adult female (Majors Point nest) called X5. With the radio tracking system the researchers were able to follow the birds south through their incredible jour- 9 —al— f M - -2— mat a Uuua Malin 75 Years Ago ney. What makes it all the more awesome is that these ospreys have made this journey each year and, believe it or not, some ospreys can live to be at least 25 years of age. Here I would like to quote from the Mashomack Preserve newsletter to give you an exact flight schedule of these two remarkable ospreys: "Here's what we know so far — the male departed from the Preserve in late July and traveled to Middlesex County, Conn. By mid - August he was back in N.Y. along the Hudson River, and two weeks later he turned up in Cuba, where he remained until mid- September. Late September found that he had traveled north and was just east of Nassau, Bahamas. "Our tagged female has been 0*ASAeVA ;F q f ^� S � t Osprey photo by Paul Soutenburgh OSPREY ROUTE —Taken from the Mashomack Preserve newsletter, this map shows just where local ospreys spend their winters. more mobile, logging approximately 5,600 miles in 39 days, averaging 145 miles per day! She stayed at Mashomack until Aug. 16, 10 days later she was in Sapelo Island, Ga., and then three days later in Key West, Fla. By Sept. 1 she was in Haiti, and a week later she ap- March 24, 1922 Babylon Girls Boycotted: "We, the young unmarried men of Babylon, L.I., in indignation assembled, do hereby solemnly declare that: Whereas, there has arisen a fad among young women of wearing their galoshes unbuttoned and of rolling their stockings downward to a point of impropriety, both of which in our opinion are slovenly and unnecessary: "Resolved, we do agree not to be seen in public with any young woman who practices these useless and nonsensical fads" The following statement of immaculate policy was given out after the meeting: "The young men of Babylon are not prudes, but they have a better notion of propriety than did the young men of ancient Babylon, and they don't approve of these foolish fads." 50 Years Ago March 28, 1947 For Sale: On the Main Road —House and service station or road stand. This entire property can be sold as one piece or the house or station separately. Priced for immediate disposal at $10,000. Arshamomaque— Ten -room farmhouse, large barn and out- buildings, approximately one acre land, good location. Price $4,500. Greenport News: Over 500 persons visited the new peared in Venezuela. By Sept. 15, she had ventured to Brazil. "Flying about the Amazon River Basin, this osprey also journeyed to the northern edge of the Pantanal, one of the world's largest and most diverse wetlands, locat- ed along the Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay bor- der. TNC [The Nature Conservancy] is >_ working with Brazil's Ecotropica Foun- dation in an. ongoing effort to conserve this area, one of Latin America's most ecological- ly important regions. A large portion of the funding for this project has been undertaken ' by the TNC's N.Y. State Board. It's nice to know that `our' ospreys' wintering grounds are being protected." From this study the researchers have already found some very interesting facts about these fish hawks. First the "females leave the nest first;" the Mashomack female left Aug. 16. Then they found that the "males return to the nest first," so those early ospreys we see coming back now are most probably males. They also found out that the "pairs are widely separated in the winter." To add to the excitement of this study, the students in Ed McDonald's fifth -grade class in the Shelter Island School are following "their ospreys" from their nesting grounds in North America to their wintering grounds in Central and South America by .way of the Internet. Talk about getting involved and spurring interest in kids. This project must rank as one of the best. The students check the progress of their birds about once a week through the Highway to the Tropics data homepage at the Raptor Center's Website (http:H www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu). If you were to look into their classroom you would see they have a colorful map crisscrossed with the paths of these birds. We're told they have renamed the three Shelter Island ospreys Kid, Chestnut and Fisher. The X4, X5, X7 was a bit too formal for them. You can well imag- ine the interest they'll have when they can go see for themselves the ospreys back on their nest — the very ones they have been tracking all year long in their class- room. It's projects like this that have real meaning to stu- dents in today's fast moving world of computers and elec- tronics. We have proof News flash! Mike Scheibel, positive of preserve manager at Mash- where some omack Preserve and coordi- nator of this program, just of our ospreys called after getting the most spend winter recent transmitter location information recorded about 6 vacation. p.m. on Saturday, the 22nd, at the University of Minnesota: X4, the adult female from the nest west of the South Ferry on Shelter Island who store of Clinton A. Hommel Inc, on Main Street during the grand opening week to admire and purchase the large display of modern home equipment. Patrons of Claudio's Restaurant at the foot of Main Street will have an unobstructed view of Greenport's beautiful harbor when the alterations to the restaurant are completed and it is open to the public about the middle of April. William Claudio, proprietor of the restaurant, estimates that the new addition will provide dining accommodations for about 100 guests. 25 Years Ago March 30, 1972 Greenport History Published: The long- awaited history of Greenport, " Greenport, Yesterday and Today and the Diary of a Country Newspaper," by Elise Knapp Corwin in col- laboration with her husband, Frederick Langton Corwin, was published this week and is now available in local stores. For anyone with an eye for history, here is a fascinating and won- derful background source of Greenport's beginnings and dynamic life up to the present. This is the first full- length his- tory of Greenport from its early settlers in 1640 to events as recent as 1969. The early editions of The Suffolk Times provide a chrono- logical history of important happenings in the village from the 1850s. Mr. Corwin has lived much of the more recent history of Greenport, having published the Suffolk Weekly Times for 46 years. had spent her winter in Venezuela, was picked up on her return just north of Raleigh, N.C., and X5, the adult female from the Majors Point nest on Mashomack who wintered in the Pantanal Region of Brazil, was picked up just south of Richmond, Va. The mystery bird of the three, X7, the adult male from the Mashomack Point nest who had vacationed in Cuba, did not give a signal on Saturday. The last trans- mission, which was not a reliable one, was recorded on March 14. However, since the males are the first to return, he will most likely be spotted here ahead of the females. We will update you with any information we receive about their arrival back here on the East End. This amazing story of our three ospreys surely drives home the fact that we no longer can think in terms only of our own backyard. Here the vastness of Brazil and Venezuela and other natural areas where ospreys winter now become vital to their survival, not to mention the bays and creeks, lakes and rivers all along the way that provide food for the osprey on its journey. No longer can we be concerned just locally; today we must be concerned globally.