John Flores: Banding programs help experts learn where the ospreys fly

One afternoon several weeks back, while trying to get some yard work done on his Bayou Blue property, Hunter Parra spotted an osprey circling his pond about 100 yards away. The osprey was holding a fish in its talons and appeared to be looking for a perch to land on, so it could eat.

When the osprey settled on top of a power pole, Parra, an amateur nature photographer, hurried to his house to grab his camera. Parra was excited about the opportunity, as ospreys happen to be one of his favorite birds to photograph. The tricky part would be trying to get close enough without spooking the feeding bird, causing it to fly away.

Parra’s 12-year-old daughter Ava, who has become quite a bird watcher in her own right, accompanied her dad to try and capture the photo. The two nature lovers, sometimes crawling in the grass, sneaked to within 30 yards of the raptor getting some interesting pictures along the way.

When they stood up the osprey flew to a cypress tree, where it must have felt safe, because they were able to walk underneath the tree without the bird flying off again. That’s when something caught Parra’s attention. The osprey had a band on its right leg.

Parra happens to be an avid waterfowl hunter and banded ducks and geese are something he is well acquainted with. But a banded osprey? This was something altogether different.

There was something else. On the osprey’s left leg was a blue marker band with the number and letter 27E on it. Parra thought, why in the world would someone band an osprey? And, not just with one band but two.
In a text from Parra, he asked me, “How rare is a banded osprey?”

I texted him a reply, “Well, that depends. I don’t know of any studies personally, but I’m sure somebody is studying them if it’s got a band. If you can zoom on its band and catch a few numbers sometimes you can report enough to learn more.”

Parra was able to get four of nine digits off the osprey’s right leg band. With the four numbers and the blue marker band nomenclature, he reported the information to the United States Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Program using their online portal.

On June 1, Parra texted me a copy of his USGS Certificate of Appreciation for reporting the encounter. On the certificate was the name of the person who banded the osprey, where it was banded, its sex, and age.

Parra’s female osprey was banded on July 2, 2021, as a chick too young to fly near Orange Beach, Alabama, in Baldwin County. In its first year, this young osprey had migrated roughly 250 miles west to Terrebonne Parish.

This was both exciting and interesting information, but it still didn’t reveal why the osprey chick was banded.

The bander on the certificate was noted as Dr. Scott Rush. By doing a little web search I was able to find out that Rush is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Aquaculture at Mississippi State University in Starkville.

Come to find out, Parra’s osprey was banded as part of a project funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility corporation that covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky, plus small areas of Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

According to Rush, osprey use TVA electric utility structures. Through the study biologists are trying to learn what can be done to help mitigate some of the issues the TVA is having to deal with in providing the utility to the people and at the same time reduce the risk to the birds.

Osprey can short out wires, says Rush, and get electrocuted. Additionally, in some cases the materials from osprey nests can also start fires and harm the birds.

Osprey nests are usually pretty high up says Rush. Where a raptor like a bald eagle will tend to build its nest in a pine tree or someplace that’s not as obvious, ospreys on the other hand nest out in the open.

Rush said, “There are large utility structures and some of the substations that have these big platforms on them, where ospreys will put sticks on them and they’ll nest on top of that.”

Though Rush’s name was listed on Parra’s certificate, the actual bander of 27E was Natasha Murphy, a graduate research assistant in the Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture Department at Mississippi State University working on her PhD.

When Murphy learned her bird was encountered in the Bayou Blue area near Houma, the news was exciting to her. She also was able to share a little more information about Parra’s osprey saying 27E was banded at 30 days old and fledged in late August 2021.

Some of Murphy’s work includes looking at the genetic structure in osprey populations as well as their movements and the dispersal of young, as well as adults.

When thinking about 27E’s westerly movement and encounter, Murphy said, “27E is interesting, not only for long distance dispersal to Louisiana, but also that she was reported in the United States during her second calendar year. Almost all juvenile ospreys skip their first migration north back to the United States and stay in South America for 18 months. 27E fledged in late August, so this report may suggest she never left the US and instead stayed in Louisiana or Alabama all winter. We can’t know for sure, but it’s very cool to speculate!”

One of the main focuses of the TVA study is to learn about osprey fidelity. In other words, how often do osprey come back to the same place to nest? And is it the same birds that come back every year?

The bigger questions are if the osprey do come back every year and if you move their nest from a high-risk site to a low-risk site that is nearby, will those birds come back and use that site? Or will they come back and simply rebuild a nest back on top of the high-risk site?

Rush said, “So far what we’ve found out is that you can move the nest within a certain distance, especially within their line of sight. We’ve learned the birds will and do come back to them.”

Like bald eagles, osprey populations have been on the increase, where artificial platforms that have been put out by people since the 1970s for them to nest on are no longer needed. Murphy has been creating predictive models, where osprey densities are greatest throughout their range.

Predictive models like Murphy’s can help utility companies like TVA to use those estimates in figuring out where to put the greatest effort in trying to mitigate some of the issues they face with raptors like osprey.

For those interested in watching 27E and her sister 74E grow and fledge, Murphy’s team of researchers put out a live webcam funded by Orange Beach
Coastal Resources that is now available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSEC1qj5xYM

Final note to everyone. Stay safe this long 4th of July weekend and remember to always wear your personal floatation devices whenever on the water.

John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.