Our Osprey Garden
Greetings!
October was a busy month for the Virginia Osprey Foundation. As you may have seen on our website, we celebrated World Migratory Bird Day at the Cooper Memorial Library. We had a good group of kids that visited our display and learned about migration and other fun bird facts. A huge shout out to Library staff and Miss Kitty for giving us space to set up.
There is exciting news about our Osprey Nest Cam! We have selected the new nest hosting site – Colonial Beach Volunteer Fire Department! Our great partner, Dominion Energy, replaced the old platform (20 years old) with a new aluminum platform that will last a lifetime!
Todd, placed all of the old nesting sticks atop the new platform so that our ospreys will feel right at home when they return. Please take a look when driving into town, it is on your right at Colonial Ave. and Douglas St.
Ospreys are known for picking up strange items to place in their nests. At a nest in King George, the male collects little stuffies to line the nest for the babies. In the firehouse nest, there were two pieces of lingerie. That gave us all a laugh!
Next year we will see firsthand what the male brings as he prepares for his new family. Our camera is ready to roll and will be mounted within a couple of weeks. We will be testing on occasion and will have a YouTube account where you will be able to view it. We will keep you posted as we progress. In case you need an osprey fix before next spring, we have linked Port Lincoln Osprey Cam, located in Australia, to our website under the tab – education.
Colonial Beach went international last month! A scientific journalist, Cheryl Dybas, interviewed Dr. Bryan Watts, Director of the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB), Michael Academia, an Osprey Researcher, also from the CCB, and I was interviewed as well.
The article was published in an English magazine, Oceanographic which centers on conservation, exploration and adventure! Colonial Beach, our festival, and our ospreys were all mentioned! I am so proud of Colonial Beach and all it has accomplished in all three of these areas! I do have a copy if anyone is interested in reading it.
There is lots of activity to try and mitigate overharvesting of Mendhaden, learn how overharvesting affects our osprey negatively in the Chesapeake Bay. Please take a moment to look at the information I have provided under the Advocacy tab on our website - Advocacy | The Virginia Osprey Foundation | Virginia Osprey Education & Advocacy. It will take many of us to help solve this problem. If each of you take just a few minutes of your time to contact our state and federal representatives it could make a huge difference for the protection of our Osprey and their habitat.
I hope you enjoyed Luis’ Corner last month. Look forward to a new posting soon. Thank you Luis for supporting us in Colonial Beach!
Osprey Festival News
Save the date! April 13, 2024
Your festival committee is hard at work. We are hoping to expand our nestlings’ Corner this year and bring in more activities. We are also in the process of looking for more vendors and exhibitors! We will soon be reaching out for volunteers to help out at the festival. Volunteers are the backbone of this event and we could not do it without them. A huge thank you to those that have given their time in years past. We hope to work with each of you again!
Thank you, Kelly Woods Vaughn and the Riverview Inn for their Silver Sponsorship, and being the FIRST sponsor for our festival this year.
Please take a look at the video on our website – https://www.virginiaospreyfoundation.org
Reminder!! We still have hats available for a donation of $25, Virginia is for Osprey Lovers T shirts for a donation of $10. We also have stickers available for a donation of $2.
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