Join us for a wonderful evening with friends!
April Special Event: Join us for our annual Return of the Osprey Party to celebrate the joyous return of our osprey pair to their nest. This year, we’re also celebrating the installation of our new osprey camera, The event is great fun, with wonderful people, live music, food, refreshments, and fantastic auction items, including many original works by well known artists. All proceeds support the Coastal Center.
Camera Update: Our new camera has been mounted, the new TV display in our Discovery Center is operational, and you can view the osprey nest by clicking this link:
View the Osprey nest live here!
The Osprey nest near our Coastal Center at Milford Point. You can follow all the action live through our "OspreyCam" (located in the blue housing to the left of the nest) from the comfort of your computer!
Ospreys have been using the nesting platform at the Coastal Center at Milford Point since 1997. Its location in the middle of the 840 acre Charles E. Wheeler Salt Marsh allows the Ospreys to easily feed and care for young. This spot also offers visitors to the Coastal Center some fantastic looks at the raptors out the expansive viewing windows or from the observation tower or platforms.
We also have a very dedicated viewing audience online as the Coastal Center has a camera set up at the Osprey nest. This Osprey Cam streams the captivating family saga live over the internet to viewers around the world. We invite you to take a glimpse into their lives, and welcome feedback in the form of screen shots, comments, questions, and more. Here is an identification tip so you can easily tell the difference between mom and dad – the male has a nearly pure white breast while the female has a brown necklace.
The typical schedule for ‘our’ Ospreys at Milford Point is as follows:
- They arrive from their wintering grounds between March 20-31
- Nest building begins shortly after and continues through the beginning of April
- The first egg is usually laid during the second or third week in April
- Subsequent eggs appear two or three days after the one before
- There are typically three eggs laid per season, but ‘our’ Osprey have been producing clutches of four eggs for the past few years
- The eggs hatch during the second half of May, sometimes in early June
- Chicks fledge by mid-July and have a lot to learn still before leaving the comfort of Milford Point
- August and early September mark the time to leave, explore nearby areas and then begin a long journey south for winter
Below is more detailed information on the species:
Clutch size: 2-4 eggs (3 on average)
Incubation: 32-41 days
Life span: 15-20 years (in the wild)
Osprey are impressively large birds up close!
Appearance: Osprey are large (22”-25” in length) black and white fish-eating raptors, with a bold white forehead and eyebrow, and a wingspan of 58”-72” inches. Both males and females are similar, but females generally exhibit more spotting (a “necklace” of spots) on the breast than males and are generally a little larger. In flight, they hold their wings back in a characteristic “M” shape. An adult Osprey generally weighs between 2-2.4 pounds.
Mating habits: Ospreys mate for life, but will often accept another mate if one of the pair dies.
Nests/Nesting Habits: Ospreys nest in tree tops, poles, towers, sometimes roof tops, chimneys, navigation buoys, rock pinnacles, stick piles, and even on the ground, but never far from water. Nesting material includes sticks, grass, seaweed and clods of mud. The following have also been found in Osprey nests: oars, fish nets, life preservers, hay rake, toy boats, brooms, boots, shoes, dolls, baskets, plastic sheeting and bags, door mat, bird wings and bleached bones (and in 2006 at Milford Point, one blue stuffed teddy bear!). The adults return year after year to rebuild and add material to the nest. Some nests are occupied every year for 40 or more years by a succession of birds and reach a depth of over 10 feet. Fledglings leave the nest after about 8 weeks from their hatch date.
Food/Eating habits: Strictly fresh-caught fish: herring, flounder, striped bass, bluefish, perch, eels, goldfish, shad, carp, catfish, trout and many others. Ospreys plunge-dive feet first into the water to catch fish that are either swimming near the surface or in shallow water.
Natural enemies: Crows, gulls and raccoons will eat unguarded eggs and young.
Voice: A loud, rich musical whistled series of chirps — “cheeap, cheeap, cheeap” — or a rising, shrill whistle — “whew, whew, whew, whew.”
Range: Ospreys are found on every continent expect Antarctica. In the northeast U.S., Ospreys migrate south, from September to early November, to winter in the Gulf States, Florida and Central America, returning to the northeast by mid-March.
Text by Scott Kruitbosch, Photos copyright Twan Leenders