Cap’n Hails Osprey Return

Photo by Ron Bailey

Message from the Cap’n is a compilation of fishing advice, waterman and weather insights, Chesapeake lore, and ordinary malarkey from the folks who keep their feet wet in the Potomac and St. Mary’s rivers.

The Cap’n

Traditionally, the Osprey return to the Chesapeake by St Patrick’s Day. This year is no different. They are slow in arriving, but some nesting pairs are establishing nests on both sides of the Potomac and the Patuxent rivers; the earliest arriving on the 4th of March.

From the Interpretive Buoy System, the water temperature in the Lower Potomac is about 44 degrees Fahrenheit and the salinity hovering around 18 PSU (practical salinity unit). The warm weather pattern of 60-degree days will help the Osprey travel 2,300 miles from Venezuela and Columbia up the 77 parallel to the Chesapeake.

Ospreys (Fish Hawks) possess a strong sense of nest site fidelity and return to the area where they were born every year. Experts say the males usually come first and wait for their mates to arrive, but on Island Creek it is often the female who’s first to return. Then love happens, and we know the rest of the story.

Many animals use tools to work within their kingdoms, and the Osprey are no different. We had a nest in front of our house on the Island Creek and the pair residing there a few years ago produced four young birds. I used to help feed the occupants of this particular nest with a ” clothesline system.” I attached the lid of an igloo cooler (18″ x 30″) to a clothesline between two poles, put a fish on the lid and pulled it out into the creek to entice the adults to get the fish and take it to the nest. Needless to say, it did not take long for them to hop off the nest and take the fish back to the youngsters.

One day I put two fish on the lid and pulled it out into the creek. The female (with a necklace around her neck) took one fish back to the nest.

Meanwhile, a big Greyback gull lit on the lid and started pecking at the other fish. That female picked up a stick from the nest, flew over and dropped it on the seagull to scare it away. This was the first time I witnessed an Osprey using a tool to repel an invader.

These birds are fascinating to watch and surely are much smarter than I. Please let me tell you a little more about them.

**********The Osprey’s Return*********

• I make St. Patty’s Day complete
• By finishing my annual retreat.
• I signal my return from aloft
• And my call is far from soft.
• **
• Peep, peep brings my cheer,
• That the first days of Spring are near.
• I’m here for my nesting mate, I wait and wait,
• After that we hope the storms abate.
• ***
• One keeps an ear bent to the sky
• To hear the sounds that I am high
• Looking for rags and twigs in the marsh
• For making my nest not too harsh.
• ****
• Bringing twigs consumes my days,
• Delivered to my matriarch for perfect lays.
• We romance often and survey the creek,
• Thirty-five days before the first beak.
• *****
• Sighting, diving, catching fish for all
• Lasts several months into the fall.
• Then at last the young have wings,
• To take them above the earthly things.
• *******
• As the days grow shorter and all are in flight,
• The urge to travel south is within their sight.
• Departing lets the Eagle loose,
• To command its realm far from the roost.

Till next time, remember “It’s Our Bay, Let’s Pass It On.”

To learn about tours and trips into the Chesapeake, keep in touch with Fins + Claws on Facebook. Catch up on Messages from the Cap’n Member Page. Please visit Cap’n Jack’s lore and share with your social media sites. Or reach him here: [email protected] or 240-434-1385.