Jane Bimson was the first I know of to report seeing an osprey here this year, during the first week of March at Fort Pond, Montauk. Bruce Collins saw a pair near Mill Pond in Water Mill about two weeks after that. I saw my first just this week.
Ospreys always arrive a bit later where I watch for them near Promised Land. I think that it has to do with food or the lack thereof, the bay appearing quite lifeless until after spring’s official start. So it would make sense that the pairs nesting near freshwater ponds, which warm earlier than does open water, would set up housekeeping earlier, too.
I have kept a log of the first osprey of the year on the basement wall for about 20 years, and, while the end of March is on the late side for them in my locale, it is not without precedent. In 2017, the earliest one I spotted was on April 2.
This year, a pair arrived about Monday near Mulford Lane off Lazy Point Road. I noticed them that afternoon somewhat tentatively poking at the remains of a last-year’s nest. Sometime later, one was perched a ways off, feeding on a small fish held in a claw.
When I was growing up in the late 1960s, osprey were a rare bird indeed. None that my father knew of nested on the mainland of Long Island, and only a few on Gardiner’s Island. I recall vividly seeing a nest there, as tall as a man, decorated with parts of plastic and metal, perhaps by the birds themselves. We knew about the “fish hawks,” as the old-timers called them, but did not often spot them.
Last week’s “On the Wing” column by Christopher Gangemi contained a striking statistic: The Group for the South Fork counted 466 active nests in the five towns of the East End, which produced 585 fledglings. Sixty-five of the nests were new. This amounts to nearly exponential growth for a bird that within my lifetime was near extinction. There is hope, I believe.