Ospreys rebuild in Moraine State Park
A young couple recently moved in at Moraine State Park after their previous home there was destroyed in 2019.
The couple, a male and a female osprey, have built a nest atop a special nesting tower at Moraine where they live, feed and will someday raise their babies, and the world has watched via an “osprey cam.”
Cassandra Dixon, vice president of the Moraine Preservation Fund, said the fund installed a new nesting tower this year to bring back osprey after a storm destroyed the old tower in 2019. The organization wants to promote a good environment for animals at the park, including osprey, which were once considered an endangered species.
“We'd like to see them increase in population,” she said. “Our focus is going to be having a sustainable place for them to come and live.”
According to Dixon, members of the Moraine Preservation Fund worked throughout the mid-1990s to bring osprey back to Pennsylvania after a long absence. The organization raised 96 osprey chicks at Moraine from 1993 to 1996, and Dixon thinks the ones currently nesting at the park are descendants of those osprey.Viewers of the osprey cam will see the male and female come and go from the nest and later return with sticks or fish, and sometimes they even bond through physical interaction, which Dixon said will likely lead to mating. She explained some of the interactions viewers might see on the osprey cam in the coming weeks, comparing the two birds to a young couple.
“The male does most of the bringing to the nest; he's the forager,” Dixon said. “The female, she'll be there cheering him on, and she does more of the interior decorating. Sometimes, the male will land on the female's back, and that's them bonding.”Dixon expects the female to lay eggs in early April, with chicks probably due in mid-May. The flying family will nest at Moraine until September, when they will migrate to South America until next March. Dixon said park visitors during this time should stick to watching the birds via the osprey cam, so the birds don't get scared off, never to return.Bringing osprey back to the park not only helps the species gain in population, but also builds appreciation from birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts who visit Moraine for sightseeing.Moraine State Park's director Dustin Drew said the park's mission is to preserve wildlife and promote nature, and helping to supplement the osprey population is an ongoing part of that mission.“When there's species out there that have endangered or threatened status, we want to provide them a good amount of protection,” Drew said. “If it comes along that we can aid or improve things for them, that falls into our mission of conservation.”While the fund has given osprey a place to nest at Moraine, Dixon said the organization has to continue maintaining a suitable environment for them to live. This could be done by evaluating the water quality in coming years or simply letting visitors know how to properly interact with the ospreys.“Our focus is going to be having a sustainable place to come and live,” Dixon said. “We may need to look at ways to keep them safe.”A link to watch the osprey cam is at MorainePreservationFund.org.
