Osprey are Learning to Fly!

Mabel is about to fly today!  Maybe! Check out the Osprey Cam today.  Tory already flew off.  They will return to the nest for a while before migrating south.  They have a long way to go, so after the first few weeks of August they will be gone, heading off to their winter homes in places like Jamaica, Mexico or Florida.

There are a number of osprey nests around the area that you can see from the highway, from the river, and from the bridge.  They are in the tops of trees or on very expensive platforms built specifically for the osprey nests.  Sometimes it takes years for a pair of osprey to build on a new platform.  The pair stay together for their lifetime, though they "vacation" separately when they fly south.  They return to the same nest each year, returning to the same spot within days of each other.

They are fun to watch, so a few places have put cameras close to nests (which doesn't seem to bother them in the least).  Osprey are protected, so there are fines for disturbing them in any way.  Of course, a few years ago when they wanted to paint a small bridge joining the island to the mainland, the State had a problem...the osprey were about to return.  They had to put off painting the bridge for a year while the osprey raised a family.  Then they built a platform, moved the nest there, and put cones on the overhead bridge framework so they wouldn't begin a new nest in the spring.

So go visit the nest in Bremen, Maine!  Hopefully you will get to see her fledge!