Ospreys and SoundVision

People at Tuesday's Long Island SoundVision press conference, at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, were excited to see three ospreys using the harbor as a fishing ground. A few dozen of us were inside and on a porch with great views of the rainy seascape as the ospreys flew past, hovered, and then plunged into the water, sometimes emerging with a fish, sometimes not.

One of the SoundVision goals is "Creating Safe and Thriving Places for All Sound Creatures." We've managed to do that for ospreys and we did it simply by banning DDT.

Tom Baptist, the head of Audubon Connecticut, was there Tuesday and reminded me that historically there were an estimated 500 osprey nests along the Sound. When he and Joe Zeranski were researching their book, Connecticut Birds, in the 1980s, there were only five osprey nests.

He told me on Tuesday that while he has counted them lately, he thinks that now there might be more than 500. Every one is a reason for small optimism.

Some Sound News

Some people who have boats in Greenwich don't like ospreys nesting near them. I would have liked this story better if it had included some reaction from Audubon Greenwich or Audubon Connecticut.

Fresh from the winning referendum on whether Stratford should sell Long Beach West to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the city (or is it a town?) signed a deal with the Trust for Public Land to serve as intermediary. This story doesn't say how much TPL will make on the deal though.

And some people in Connecticut want to keep the lobster v-notch program going, here and here.

Power to the Ospreys

If an osprey nest somehow knocked out power in my neighborhood, I'd say fine, we're taking one for the team. Amazing as it seems, that's what happened yesterday in Seymour, which is in the Naugatuck Valley. Here's how the Connecticut Post put it:

Instead of humans disturbing nature, nature disrupted humans Wednesday when an osprey nest touched a power line, knocking out power to about 1,160 Connecticut Light & Power customers for about three hours.

Neither the baby birds nor their mother was injured, and CL&P crews cut back the nest, Al Lara, a company spokesman, said Wednesday night.

The nest was built on a pole in a rural spot near Chamberlain Road, and Walnut, Spring and Pearl streets, Lara said.

My guess from looking at a map is that the ospreys are nesting near the Peat Swamp Reservoir. Good luck to them.