Osprey and many other bird species are behaving like their breeding seasons are over or close to over. Osprey are starting to disperse, shorebirds are flocking up on local beaches and swallows can be seen swarming over the dunes of Plum Island. A bittersweet reality of late summer.
I banded the final Osprey chick of 2016 on Aug 4 - a late and new nest. That makes a total of 35 chicks banded this season (a single year high for me) and brings the total number of banded chicks to 85 since we bagan in 2013. And just yesterday I learned of the first one of these chicks recovered as an adult. Its a good story. On the front cover of the Newburyport Daily News was a photo of a wildlife rehabber releasing an Osprey she had been caring for. I could see a band on the birds leg in the photo, so I contacted the woman - Jane Kelly. Sure enough it was band #1088-03759 that I had place on a chick in a nest in Essex in July 2014. This now 2 year old bird, which Jane thought was a male, had been found weak and unable to fly in West Newbury along the Merrimack River. But he ate voraciously in captivity and was released in a healthy state this week.
Preliminary 2016 numbers appear to show another increae in breeding pairs of Osprey from east Boston to Salisbury. I will have a full report out later, but I think data will show around 40 pairs nestiung this year with very high productivity. We have confiormed over 60 fledglings which is a record high since Greenbelt has been monitoring Osprey.
Finally, Greenbelt is hosting the New England Osprey Symposium on Sep 22. Its an all day meeting focused on the status of Osprey across all 6 New England states. Its free and we welcome anyone to take a closer look at the program (http://www.ecga.org/what_we_do/view_event/236-2016_new_england_osprey_symposium)and register at: www.ecga.org/ospreysymposium. Hope to see you there.