GRAND OLE
OSPREY Move over, eagles – Kentucky has another raptor success story By Kevin Kelly 8
Kentucky Afield Spring 2016
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IVE-YEAR-OLD Ava Yancy is fortunate to be growing up in an era in Kentucky when she does not have to watch a nature documentary or crack open a library book to learn about ospreys. She can – and did – catch a glimpse of an osprey hunting for its next meal in the fishing lake at Paducah’s Bob Noble Park. Her mother snapped photos to remember the moment. Her father, David Yancy, took pride in it all. Yancy, now a deer biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, worked in the department’s osprey restoration program early in his career. “I was really blown away,” he said of the family’s osprey sighting. “After I found out for sure that it was probably an osprey from a nesting pair between there and the Ohio River, I was like, ‘Wow, I wouldn’t have seen that as a kid.’ ” He’s right. Seeing an osprey four decades ago in Paducah – or anywhere in Kentucky for that matter – would have been rare.
John James Audubon, “Fish Hawk or Osprey” from “The Birds of America”
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There were no confirmed osprey nests in Kentucky from 1949 to 1986. However, the most recent statewide survey led by Kentucky Fish and Wildlife illustrates how much better things are today for the raptor also known as the “fish hawk.” The latest survey, conducted in 2014, tallied 128 occupied osprey nests in the state. “It’s pretty amazing,” said Kate Slan-
kard, avian biologist with Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. “The birds have almost doubled in numbers since I’ve been with the department. It’s not that long of a time but it is amazing to witness that comeback.” Ospreys historically built nests along the floodplains of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In the early 1800s, renowned ornithologist and wildlife artist John James Audubon observed nesting pairs in the area of the Falls of the Ohio. In his book, “The Birds of America,” Audubon noted, “When I first removed to Louisville in Kentucky, several pairs were in the habit of raising their brood annually on a piece of ground immediately opposite the foot of the Falls of the Ohio in the state of Indiana. “The ground belonged to the venerable General (George Rogers) Clark, and I was several times invited by him to visit the spot. Increasing population, however, has driven off the birds, and few are now seen on the Ohio, unless during their migrations to and from Lake Erie, where I have met with them.” Osprey numbers had fallen precipitously across their range by the second half of the 20th century. Only after the United States banned use of the pesticide DDT in 1972 did osprey populations start to rebound. “It was sort of a lesser-known species decline that came out of the DDT era,” Slankard said. “Everybody thinks of the bald eagle, but ospreys were affected, too. They came back at the same time.” The pesticide accumulated in fish and caused fish-eating birds like the osprey to lay eggs with shells so weak they broke before hatching. By 1981, nine years after the DDT ban, an estimated 8,000 nesting pairs existed in the U.S. Most were clustered in the Pacific Northwest, Western Interior, Great Lakes, Atlantic Coast and parts of the Gulf Coast, according to the book, “Biology and Management of Bald Eagles and Ospreys.” Five nesting pairs were reported around Reelfoot Lake and Watts Bar Reservoir in Tennessee – but none in Kentucky. To some extent, osprey returned naturally as populations rebounded due to the DDT ban. But the creation of new reservoirs and the use of a technique known as “hacking” hastened their return.
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HACKING “Hacking is a sort of medieval falconry technique that knights used,” Yancy said. “They would get a falcon out of its nest when it was young and would put it in a box on top of the castle. With falconry it was to produce a bird that would still be wild enough to hunt but not so wild that you couldn’t fly it off your gloved hand. The way they did that was to get it as a nestling and you raise it in this box but you minimize contact with it so it doesn’t associate people with getting fed.” The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency modified a hacking technique used in a peregrine falcon release program in New York for bald eagle and osprey reintroduction programs already underway in Tennessee. The technique employed for hacking projects in Kentucky involved collecting young, wild ospreys from nests in other states, then relocating the birds to specially constructed hacking towers. Researchers sought nestlings with enough feathers to maintain a constant body temperature, Yancy said, but not so old that they were ready to fly. “When they reach the point where they start standing up and flapping in the nest to build up their flight muscles and starting to practice what it takes to fly, you want that happening inside the (hacking) structure,” he explained. At each location, a biologist or volunteer looked after the ospreys, recording observation times, weather, location and behavior of the birds. Hacking platforms were typically placed in a tree or fastened to a utility pole. They consisted of square wooden bases mounted 15 to 20 feet off the ground, with artificial nests fashioned out of twigs, branches, green leaves and vines. Metal flashing wrapped around the base of the tower prevented raccoons from raiding the nests; wire also could be placed around the platforms to ward off any nestling-killing owl. Caretakers fed young ospreys frozen fish – often gizzard shad and carp – usually gathered by the department’s fisheries crews. A wire basket or ice scoop attached to the end of a 20-foot pole delivered fish to the birds. This was done to minimize human
John MacGregor photo
David Yancy photo
Assisted by seasonal employee Joe Flotemersch, Wildlife Biologist Richard Hines holds an osprey brought into Kentucky from Chesapeake Bay in 1988. Biologists kept the bird at this hacking platform (above, right) at Laurel River Lake. contact with the nestlings. Ospreys generally associate the area where they learned to fly as home, so birds had to remain in their nests long enough to make this connection. The true test of whether the hacking was a success came at three years, when a bird matured and started building its own nest. Ospreys prefer to return to the general area where they fledged for nesting. Osprey that nest in Kentucky typically do so from March into July. They prefer standing trees, snags or large man-made structures such as bridges, channel markers and transmission towers for their nests. “They are avid nest builders,” Slankard said. “If they are here on the nesting grounds they are working on their nest. They always keep it nice. Even after the young fledge,
they’re still adding sticks to their nest.” State and federal agencies cooperated on the hacking projects, coordinating their efforts to improve nesting habitat. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife partnered with the TVA on the project starting in 1982. Later, the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers played roles, too. RESTORATION EFFORTS BEGIN Hacking projects initiated on the Tennessee portion of Land Between The Lakes started in 1981 and soon thereafter expanded into Kentucky. The TVA established a hacking site in Lyon County, at Honker Bay in Land Between The Lakes, by the following year. No osprey were hacked there in 1982.
Former Wildlife Director Lauren Schaaf holds osprey nestlings for the media to photograph after the birds’ arrival from Gainesville in 1982.
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John MacGregor photo fw.ky.gov
Wildlife Biologist Charlie Wilkins checks an osprey at a hacking site at Metropolis Lake near West Kentucky WMA in the mid1980s.
Kentucky Fish and Wildlife was poised to join the effort by then and in June 1982 the TVA supplied the department with six ospreys collected from nests around Gainesville, Florida. The nestlings received quite a reception as they were carried off a plane in Kentucky. “The first thing the ospreys saw in Kentucky was about a dozen people from three newspapers and four television stations who were on hand to record their arrival,” wrote Andy Mead, a reporter for The Saturday (Lexington) Herald and Leader. The article continued: “The birds took all the attention quietly, calmly staring at the humans through bright golden eyes.” Two of the nestlings were taken to a hacking tower near the Kentucky River north of Frankfort. The other pairs were taken to Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Bullitt County and Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County. Three of the six successfully fledged their foster nests and returned to the wild. A total of 30 more young ospreys obtained from wild nests in Maryland and Delaware were brought to Kentucky in 1983-84. The department ended its hacking efforts in the mid-1980s but continued assisting the TVA, and later the U.S. Forest Service, by supplying those agencies with nestlings obtained through agreements with other state wildlife agencies. The TVA’s hacking efforts at Land Between The Lakes continued through 1989. Sixty-one young ospreys were released there over nine years.
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KDFWR archive photo
The U.S. Forest Service hacked two dozen ospreys at Laurel River Lake from 1988 through 1991. Laurel River Lake was picked because of its size, relative isolation afforded by the Daniel Boone National Forest and ample fish populations. All told, the osprey restoration resulted in the hacking of 133 young ospreys across Kentucky from 1982-1991. Money collected from the “Nongame Wildlife/Natural Areas Fund” check-off box on state income tax forms helped fund Kentucky Fish and Wildlife’s portion of the work. SIGNS OF SUCCESS The hacking projects started to bear fruit in 1986, when researchers discovered nests being used at Lake Barkley, Kentucky Lake and along the lower Ohio River in Livingston County. Only the Livingston County nest, which was built on a powerline tower, was successful. At least two young were present in the nest, and a leg band on one of the adults confirmed it was a bird hacked on Kentucky Lake in 1981 near Eva, Tennessee. The nesting population continued to grow in the years to come. As it did, the need for more nesting sites became apparent. A ring platform designed by The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proved critical in that respect. TVA biologists adapted the design and erected a dozen of them in Lake Barkley. Workers waited until the lake shrank to its lowest level at winter pool, then set the platforms in concrete. Steve Bloemer, wildlife program manager for the U.S. Forest Service’s Land Be-
tween The Lakes National Recreation Area, said the experimental platforms proved to be a success. “We worked closely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get permits to put those in places where they would hopefully be out of the way of most of the boat traffic,” he said. “We had to mark them very clearly so boats could see them. Some were right there near the U.S. 68 bridge across Lake Barkley, some a little bit upstream from the bridge and then some at other key locations where we thought they might be used. “The osprey took to them almost immediately. A bunch got used the very first year and within two or three years every one of them was occupied. So it was very successful.” Osprey pairs found the channel markers hospitable, but their nests often obscured navigation lights and became a safety hazard. Yancy remembers fielding a call from the U.S. Coast Guard seeking permission to remove nests after the breeding season so it could service the navigation lights or make them visible again. Osprey pairs use the same nest year after year but will rebuild if it’s destroyed. In response, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife personnel fabricated a modified ring platform that could be mounted to the navigational marker by the Coast Guard. Kentucky’s first successful osprey pair in decades.
David Yancy photo
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ers. The Coast Guard installed a few of the platforms on KenWE RECYCLE YOU tucky Lake in TennesR FISHING LINE One of the biggest threats osprey see and in Kentucky. face in the United States is fishing line, “The Coast Avian Biologist Kate Slankard said. Guard told me our “They pick up fishing line for nesting FISHING LINE platforms saved them material – in huge amounts – and it many hours of nest can entangle the young in the nest,” removal maintenance she said. “It can get to the point and made its work where they can’t fledge and end up safer,” Ray said. dying because they’re just stuck to Ray’s group dothe nest. That’s the biggest threat that NO CANS - NO BOT nated platforms to we’ve seen in recent years.” TLES - NO TRASH Kentucky Fish and Wildlife not only for Slankard, the department’s avian biolouse on Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake, but anywhere else they were needed in gist, expects the trend to continue when the next statewide survey occurs in 2017. Kentucky. “I think we’ll keep seeing more growth,” Ray’s survey work expanded to include Kentucky Lake in 2004 and continued until she said. “Ospreys are really packing in to 2008. By that time, the number of occupied particular localities. They’re not necessarily nests around Lake Barkley had grown from spreading statewide. We’re just getting more and more at Land Between The Lakes and 23 to almost 50. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife expanded in far western Kentucky. “We have some popping up in central the osprey survey in 2011 and it found 87 Kentucky but it’s not like bald eagles – where occupied nests at that time. “They’re popping up everywhere,” now almost every reservoir has a bald eagle Bloemer said. “There’s an interstate ex- nest on it. I think at some point we’re going to change down here that’s maybe a quarter- hit a carrying capacity at Land Between The mile from the lake or so, and there’s an os- Lakes and they’ll finally start spreading out.” Land Between The Lakes, with more prey nest on top of it.” As a result of the efforts over the years, than 100 nests observed in 2014, continues to ospreys are probably more abundant in Ken- maintain the state’s greatest concentration. “It’s really been a conservation success tucky than ever before, Yancy said. Ospreys are now expanding their range story,” Bloemer said. In Yancy’s mind, the effort to restore into other parts of the state. A century after Audubon observed the birds at Falls of osprey in Kentucky was important because the Ohio, a pair tried to build a nest on a the species had, at one time, nested in the tower at the Ohio Falls Generating Station state. But the effort also helped Kentucky at McAlpine Dam, located just below the Fish and Wildlife demonstrate that its approach to conservation extends beyond Falls of the Ohio. In recent years, biologists observed os- hunting and fishing. “I was really amazed not only that it’s prey nests along the Ohio River in Pendleton County, at Cedar Creek Lake in Lincoln worked,” he said, “but that it’s worked so damn well.” n County and in southern Fayette County.
FISHING LINE CAN BE DEADLY
Nesting platform attached to a navigational marker.
Reciclamos su línea de pesca Lanzar su línea de pesca No echar latas - botellas usados en este contenedor - y ninguna otra basura aquí
KDFWR archive photo
“It worked,” Yancy said. “So we started doing that.” About a dozen of the nesting platforms were installed above navigation lights and channel markers in Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. By the early 1990s, the focus on osprey had turned from planting the seeds for restoration to managing a re-established nesting species in the state. “Their numbers have just been going up and up,” Bloemer said. The nesting population at Lake Barkley experienced steady growth. By 1995, there were 14 active osprey nests on stand-alone platforms, utility poles and trees. In 1996, the U.S. Forest Service took over management of Land Between The Lakes from the TVA and osprey nest surveys ended. Ed Ray served as the area’s chief naturalist for a quarter century. Upon leaving that job, he bought a 23-foot deck boat and ran eco-tours on the lake, conducting nest surveys while he was on the water. At the time, all the free-standing platforms and platforms built above the navigation lights along the Cumberland River channel in mid-Lake Barkley had nests. Ray also started the nonprofit Kentucky Environmental Education Projects, Inc. (KEEP). Working with elementary school students, he designed a steel nesting platform that required only three people and no concrete to install. The organization also modified a receiver on the bottom of the platforms to easily fit on navigational mark-
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This Lake Barkley nest included a video camera for live streaming.
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Adrienne Yancy photo
E Eche No echa
An opportunistic osprey fishes for newly stocked trout in Brickyard Pond.
OSPREY Pandion haliaetus
An osprey’s eye color changes from brown to yellow as they mature.
highly developed. They prefer fishing over shallow water since their prey must swim relatively close to the surface. Ospreys fly with a crook in their wings that resembles the letter “M.” An osprey will hover briefly over its prey, fold in its wings and dive toward the water, outstretching its legs just before breaking the surface. The bird may disappear under water and re-emerge with its catch clutched in its long talons. MIGRATION: September is the peak of fall migration to the wintering grounds in Central and South America as well as the West Indies. They return to the breeding grounds in the spring and often return to the same nests. NESTING: Ospreys build large nests in a variety of locations, including the tops of Kate Slankard photo
LENGTH: 21 to 26 inches WINGSPAN: 59 to 67 inches WEIGHT: 2.2 to 3.9 pounds HABITAT: Near water APPEARANCE: Ospreys are sometimes mistaken for bald eagles because both are large-bodied raptors with white heads and impressive wingspans. Ospreys feature a narrow band of brown that extends through their piercing yellow eyes. Adult ospreys are brown on top and mostly white on the underside of their bodies, although the female may include some dark streaks on the breast. Ospreys have a black, hooked bill and blueish gray to greenish white feet with black talons. DIET: An osprey’s diet consists almost exclusively of live fish and its angling skills are
John Williams photos
trees, dead snags, bridges, transmission towers, duck blinds and navigational channel markers. Nests are mostly made of many sticks and lined with softer material like bark, grasses and vine. Ospreys have been known to incorporate man-made objects in their nests. Author John Steinbeck noted such behavior in his essay, “My War with the Ospreys.” “For in the nest I had found…my bamboo garden rake, three T-shirts belonging to my boys and a Plaza Hotel bath towel,” he wrote. “Apparently nothing was too unusual for the ospreys to steal for their nest building.” BREEDING: In Kentucky, nesting can occur from late March into July. Ospreys typically lay two to three eggs – each about the size of a large chicken egg – in March and April. Incubation is roughly 35 days. Nestlings feature a white stripe down the backs of their necks which gives the appearance of a stick laying in the nest. Chicks fledge once they reach 51 to 59 days old. SOURCES: “A Field Guide to the Birds’ Nests: United States east of the Mississippi River”; “A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds”; “2014 Osprey Update,” Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources; “Audubon Wildlife Report 1986”; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers technical report, July 1986.
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