Young Ospreys being raised in the metro area were banded recently. The work was done by personnel from Three Rivers Park District and others involved in the Twin Cities Osprey Project. Fifty nests were visited, the young birds removed briefly for banding, then returned to their nests. There are 61 known Osprey nests in the greater metropolitan area, those 50 active and occupied. All but one of the nests are on platforms erected for the birds. One pair chose to nest the old-fashioned way this year: they used a tree. Judy Voigt Englund, project coordinator, told me that it’s hoped that as our Osprey population grows more and more pairs will chose trees as nest sites. She said that the chicks raised this year in the tree nest hopefully would be more likely to choose a tree site when they mate and nest. The photos were taken at two nesting sites in western Hennepin County. Doing the climbing is Jim Mussel of the Tree Guys. The young birds are put into that box you see in the photo for the ride to the ground and back. They’re out of the nest for perhaps five minutes. While their chicks were out of the nest, the parent Ospreys flew over the work, calling loudly. They then returned to the job of seeing that each nestling gets the pound of fish it needs each day. Of the two nests we visited, one had three chicks, the other two. Both nests held one unhatched egg (see photo).    

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