GLOUCESTER POINT, Va. (AP) — Stepping onto an old wooden duck blind in the middle of the York River, Bryan Watts looks down at a circle of sticks and pine cones on the weathered, guano-spattered platform. It’s a failed osprey nest, taken over by diving terns.
“The birds never laid here this year,” said Watts, near the mouth of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. “And that’s a pattern we’ve been seeing these last couple of years.”
Watts has a more intimate relationship with ospreys than most people have with a bird – he has climbed to their nests to free them from plastic bags, fed them by hand and monitored their eggs with telescopic mirrors.
The fish-eating raptor known for gymnastic dives and whistle-like chirps is an American conservation success story. After pesticides and other hazards nearly eliminated the species from much of the country, the hawk-like bird rebounded after the banning