Joe Drennan
Staff writerMore than 15 years ago an old telephone pole with a box nailed to the top of it was put up on Don and Sonja Steinkeís farm in Columbus Township. The pole was put up as part of the Twin Cities Osprey Project run by the Three Rivers Park District.
The goal of the Twin Cities Osprey Project is to reintroduce ospreys as a nesting species to the seven-county metro area. When the program began in 1984, six young osprey were brought to the metro area from northern Minnesota and released in the Carver Park Reserve.
Today there are 42 active nests in the metro area with over 20 nesting osprey that have been identified by leg bands.
As young osprey hatch, they are banded by the Three Rivers Park District with two bands. One band is a silver U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service leg band, which is recorded at the Bird Banding Lab in Washington D.C. and can only be read at the time of the banding and when the bird dies.
The other band is a black alpha-numeric band that can be read with a pair of binoculars as the bird sits in its nest or flies.
Thursday, Vanessa Greene and Judy Englund of the Three Rivers Park District and Bill McCarron of Xcel Energy visited the Steinke farm to band this years hatchlings of osprey.
McCarron, volunteering his time, climbed the pole so that he could get to the young osprey. McCarron found one feisty osprey and two small carcasses. McCarron carefully loaded the birds into a duffel bad and lowered them to Greene and Englund one at a time.
The two carcasses will be tested to determine the cause of death.
One carcass will be tested for the West Nile virus. If the West Nile test comes up negative, then the second carcass will be tested further for other possible causes of death.
As McCarron was working, an adult osprey returned to the area and flew overhead in circles with a fish in its claws, squawking the whole time.
When the young bird made it to the ground it was banded and placed back in the bag and returned to its nest.
Greene and Englund said it is best to band the birds at five weeks old because they canít fly yet, but they have grown enough to where the bands will not fall off the legs.
The past two years there have been two adult osprey in the nest on the Steinke farm, one male and one female, but this year there was only one adult osprey. It is unknown where the second osprey went and its absence is a worry for Greene and Englund.
They plan to monitor the nest more and see if the second osprey returns.
Seven new osprey birds were banded Thursday as McCarron, Greene and Englund visited several osprey nests in the metro area.
Three Rivers Park District encourages people to report new osprey nests via e-mail at osprey.mn@att.net or by calling 952-935-1883.
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