MASSACHUSETTS BIRDS OF PREY CRACKED

I’m sure that Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's osprey-cam and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History osprey-cam also helped. Why? Because they’re large, visible migratory birds they allow human activity near their nest they mate for life and they have made a remarkable population recovery, with some human help in the form of a federal ban on the toxic chemical DDT and the installation of many man-made nest poles. Most ospreys over the course of their 15- to 20-year lifespan can travel up to 160,000 miles.Īside from some of their amazing natural history, ospreys are also known as nature’s ambassador. One of the obvious questions here is where do they come from? This was answered when a tagged bird that left Martha’s Vineyard after nesting successfully turned up in French Guiana, South America. Their average hunting time, from the moment they see a fish until they dive for it, only averages about 12 minutes. The osprey is successful at catching fish 25 percent of the time. I’m sure if you have ever fished, you can fully appreciate this factoid. It is the only North American hawk that dines on fresh fish.

Much more is known about the osprey than other raptors because of its behavior to tolerate humans close by its nest. As you may know, there was a 1972 federal ban on the use of DDT and today we have more than 200 ospreys just on Cape Cod. This led to a very drastic population decline.

MASSACHUSETTS BIRDS OF PREY CRACKED

It was so concentrated at this point that although it didn’t kill the ospreys, it made the birds' egg shells so thin that they cracked very easily. It ran off into streams and then rivers and up the food chain and eventually was found in the bigger fish that osprey caught. However, DDT didn’t break down and become a harmless chemical. These birds, also known as fish hawks or sea hawks, were very susceptible to DDT, a pesticide used by farmers back then to kill the insects that munched on their crops. The osprey is the most common and well- known bird of prey in the world, but it hasn’t always been that way in the U.S.īack in 1970, only 10 pairs were found nesting in Massachusetts. These large, rangy hawks, with a 6-foot wingspan, are migratory birds that have been observed arriving on Cape Cod as early as March 3, but mostly in the third week of the month. Ospreys are starting to turn up at many coastal locations all over the Cape.

Massachusetts birds of prey