Town Installs Alternative Nesting Platform For Ospreys To Prevent Fires, Outages And Electrocutions

CHATHAM – Every year, ospreys nesting on utility poles cause power outages and fires as well killing numerous birds. Utility companies respond by installing guards on the top of poles to prevent the raptors from nesting on electrical equipment.

 Without options, the ospreys often try to continue to build nests on the poles, usually unsuccessfully. But efforts have been underway to provide alternative nesting platforms for the birds, which generally mate for life and return to the same nesting site each spring.

 Working with Eversource and volunteers, the town’s conservation department recently installed a nesting platform off Bridge Street near a utility pole on which an osprey pair attempted to nest last year. The nest was on top of live electric components and caught fire, according to Conservation Agent Paul Wightman. 

 “It caught fire twice, so it was a high priority,” he said. Fortunately, the pair of adult ospreys were not injured.

 With the help of crane operator Jess Comolli of Comolli Tree and Crane Service and pole climber Jon Hinkley, a new platform designed by Chris Walz was installed near the utility pole earlier this month. 

 “There should be a pair on there in the next week or so,” Wightman said last week. Working with Walz, the town has installed three nesting platforms and is working on a third near Ryder’s Cove, he said.

 The Bridge Street pole was placed in a marsh. Ospreys build their nests of sticks, driftwood and other debris on high spots near the waters that are the source of their main diet (the species is also known as fish hawks). The platform design is simple, Walz wrote in an email, but the trick is minimizing damage to the marsh during installation. 

 “As with any housing search, it primarily comes down to location; the proximity of the new site to the old, and the exceptional behavior by the osprey to return to the same nest year after year,” he wrote.

Walz, who is known among the local birding community through his “Beard with Binoculars” Facebook page, has been involved in repairing, relocating and installing osprey poles since 2007. Most, more than 40, are in Barnstable, but he’s also worked in 11 of the Cape’s 15 towns. 

Getting osprey nests off utility poles is not only beneficial for the birds, preventing their electrocution, but also prevents power outages and fires that impact local residents. The birds have also been known to nest on chimneys and boats, Walz said. The remarkable recovery of the raptor — whose numbers declined precipitously in the 1950s and ‘60s due to DDT, which thinned eggshells and caused infertility — means more nests popping up along the coast and near ponds and wetlands, something readily evident by the many nests in the area. 

 “We don't always know what makes one site more desirable to an osprey than another,” Walz wrote. “Some go unused for years until the population density increases enough to pressure the birds to use a lower quality site or another utility pole farther down the line. Lower quality could mean nearby human activity, it could be height, it could be surrounding trees or distance to the water. There would be less of an impact if more ospreys would build their nests in trees, but there are so many ‘easier’ places to build that are closer to the water, taller than and farther from other trees, like utility poles, cell towers, and chimneys.”

While he’s watching for opportunities to put up platforms on town conservation land, Wightman said the priority is finding alternatives for nests on utility poles. The difficulty comes when dealing with nests on poles where there are no alternative sites. Claflin Landing is an example; ospreys built a nest on a pole with a generator, and even though Eversource put up a nesting guard — technically known as a “half-pipe galvanized guard” — the pair built their nest around it, he said. Because the area is mainland private property, there’s no place to put up an alternative platform. The birds will continue to try to nest on poles unless there is an alternative; that happened near Jackknife Beach, where guards were placed on five different poles. Eventually, the Chatham Conservation Foundation put up a platform right off Route 28, and the pair took to it quickly, Wightman said.

 “There’s no guarantee that they’ll do that, but they’ll usually go to it,” he said.

The next platform may go up near Ryder’s Cove, where ospreys nest on top of the old Marconi Station radio towers. Plans are in the works to move the towers.

Wightman said there’s also a platform at the Valley Farm conservation property off Barn Hill Road and near the Forest Beach overlook where there are educational signs about ospreys.

 “They’re recovering quite well,” he said. “And Chatham is just the ideal habitat for them. There are a lot of ospreys around.”