The last osprey I saw on Lake Tashmoo was in mid-September. He soared silently, without making any of the distinctive high-pitched whistles and chirps that are the background summer melody of the pond.
No ospreys remained to call to. I looked up at the lone osprey against the clear blue autumn sky and shouted, “Time to get going.”
He needed no reminder from me. Within days, answering a call embedded in him from birth, he had departed.
Female ospreys begin their nonstop journey to their South American wintering grounds in mid-August. Males and juveniles follow the southerly migration route in September.
Ornithologist Richard O. (Rob) Bierregaard Jr., who has been studying ospreys on the Island since 1971, told me this week, “Overall on the Vineyard, we had more than 150 pairs, at least building nests, and a very healthy productivity of young.”
I work for the Tisbury harbor department, and during the boating season I patrol Tashmoo in a classic Island-built Tashmoo-18 skiff. Like many folk who spend time on these waters, I enjoy watching ospreys wheel and dive, and plunge into the water with outstretched talons to grab a fish.
This season featured an osprey success story on Tashmoo. Rob counted 15 productive nests during his summer surveys of the pond. The close-knit seasonal and year-round Tashmoo community played a part.
Vineyard Gazette readers may recall the plight of the forlorn osprey called Hank, who maintained a lonesome vigil every day that previous summer atop the remnants of a damaged nest platform on a navigational piling in the middle of Tashmoo Pond.
On a cold, blustery March 21, the father-son team of Alec and Riley Gale, and Reid and Owen Silva of West Tisbury, installed a new platform on the osprey pole. Coincidentally, Hank arrived on Tashmoo that same day. Weeks later, Patsy joined Hank on his new nest platform.
I kept a watchful eye on the nest. In May, when two small chicks, Waylon and Dolly, first poked their heads up to look around, I pumped my fists in the air like a proud, excited uncle.
Except for Chappaquiddick, Tashmoo has the highest concentration of osprey nesting pairs on the Island. The pond’s deep water and flats are an ideal habitat for a raptor that feeds exclusively on fish. Tall trees, many with broken tops, along the surrounding shoreline provide superb nesting sites.
The community helped out again in early July when three osprey chicks fell to the ground from their storm-damaged nest at the top of a pitch pine on a point in the southwest corner of Tashmoo. Property owner Amy Anderson called Suzan Bellincampi, director at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, who called her husband, Jean-Marc Dupon.
It was no job for the faint of heart. The nest was wedged high up in a tangle of tree branches. Jean-Marc called a landscaper with access to a boom truck.
Jean-Marc rebuilt the nest with wire, lumber, and fallen sticks. Then he carried the chicks up in pet cages, under the watchful eyes of their circling, anxious mom.
“It was like all the pieces came together,” Ms. Bellincampi told the Gazette at the time. “All the right people on the right group text with all the right skills.”
Ospreys do not always exercise good judgment when choosing where to build their nests. They have been known to assemble sticks, weed and flotsam and jetsam on chimneys, boats and most notably, utility poles, sparking power outages. One such pair — neighbors called Arlo and Janis — were evicted from a nearby utility pole, passed on a tree, and built their nest at the end of a small private floating dock on Tashmoo’s west side.
Rob and I discovered the nest during a survey in early May. There were immediate concerns. The nest made the dock unusable for the property owners, and it was vulnerable to a land-based predator, such as a raccoon or skunk.
It was late in the game to remove the nest and expect the ospreys to start over at a new site. So we came up with a plan. Build a raft platform, slide the nest onto it, and anchor the raft off the shore near the dock. But who could we call on to make it?
Tisbury shellfish constable Danielle Ewart and deputy constable Aidan Morrison stepped up. Using a spare dock float and lumber they had on hand, they built a sturdy platform and towed it to the site in late May. But before they could act, motherhood intervened. The female laid her first egg.
An osprey nest in its early construction may be removed. However, once an egg is present, a nest may not be relocated without the proper state and federal permits. Rob contacted licensed wildlife rehabilitator Stephanie Ellis, executive director of Wild Care, Inc., in Orleans, who traveled to the Island to guide the effort.
After several anxious weeks, during which two eggs hatched, a team that included Dani, Aidan, Liz Olson and Rich Couse of BiodiversityWorks removed the chicks from the nest on July 26. They used a sheet of plywood like a spatula to slide the nest onto the floating platform.
“The result exceeded everyone’s expectations,” Ms. Ellis said. “Within just five minutes of the relocation, the adult female osprey landed on the new nest and resumed caring for her chicks.”
In the waning days of summer, I regularly paused my skiff near the channel osprey pole to see how Hank and Dolly were progressing. I knew they could leave on their perilous journey any day.
As I contemplated what the future held for them and me, I thought that if there were any possibility of reincarnation, I wouldn’t mind returning to Tashmoo as an osprey.
Nelson Sigelman lives in Vineyard Haven, and is the author of Martha’s Vineyard Outdoors, Fishing, Hunting and Avoiding Divorce On a Small Island.