ABOUT OSPREYS by Ralph Bice
From November 1975
One of my earliest memories is of a tall dead pine tree that stood perhaps five hundred yards from our house. That was when we lived near Haliburton. But the interesting part of this particular dead tree was that there was an osprey’s nest on the very top. One of the yearly events was the sight of those large birds when they returned from their winter habitat in the spring. These birds were not called ospreys then. At least not by the older people. They were fish hawks. And it was always an interesting sight to see these large birds swoop down to the surface of the water and grip a fish in its talons.
Everyone who has lived in the more or less unsettled areas of Ontario have seen these birds of prey. They became quite scarce a few years ago but in recent years many have been reported. Indeed a pair apparently nested not far from West Bay on Sand Lake. Then there must have been a pair nested not too far from Cripple Lake. The last nest I recall seeing was on a birch stub close to the water’s edge on Sawyer Lake, just east of Rain Lake in Algonquin Park. The first years I guided in Algonquin Park during the First World War there were always a pair of ospreys on Booth Lake, then called MacDougall Lake. Later in the season there would be two or three young ones. This lake had a large population of fish. One day there had been a good catch of bass and these had been placed on the beach to be cleaned. Apparently they were close to the water for when the wind got up and the waves washed the shore some of the fish floated out into the lake. From nowhere one of those birds appeared and made a nice dive and the whole party saw it take to the air with a good-sized fish in its claws. In a few minutes it returned and the capture was repeated. The fish that floated into the lake were all retrieved by the ospreys. During our stay, and it was a large group, every day a few extra fish were caught just for the ospreys. The birds seemed to catch on as they always showed up just as we returned to camp and I do not think they missed a fish.
The use of DDT, especially when it was used so heavily, was not good for many birds. Besides being affected, at times killed by this poison, this insecticide rendered eggs infertile and also affected the calcium causing the shells to become soft. This meant a great reduction in the number of young birds that were produced. Many other types of birds were also affected, in fact those that fed on fish or even other birds. They too are showing signs of recovery since DDT has been banned.
In a fairly recent issue of Natural History Magazine there is a story of the studies made on Gardiners Island, about eight miles long, less than a third of that in width. Lion Gardiner obtained title to it in 1639. He was an English soldier of fortune. The friendly Montauk Indians traded it to him for “one black dog, one gun, a quantity of powder and shot, a keg of rum, and a few Dutch blankets” – (Real Estate dealers please note). Later King Charles the first ratified the transaction and it has remained in the Gardiner family ever since.
The ospreys nest there. Studies there show that when the DDT was doing the most damage the number of nesting birds dropped seriously and the number of young per nest dropped even more. But since the ban they have made a fine recovery. Since there are no predatory mammals of any kind on the little island of about 3,300 acres, they are not molested in any way. People are not allowed to make casual visits.
So the osprey has been saved and perhaps we will still be able to see them soaring around in the sky. Osprey soar mostly when looking a lake over for a fish for dinner.