Every year, PSEG Long Island celebrates the return of the local osprey population in Patchogue Village by preparing for the breeding season and performing maintenance on the osprey cams. The …
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Every year, PSEG Long Island celebrates the return of the local osprey population in Patchogue Village by preparing for the breeding season and performing maintenance on the osprey cams. The monitored Patchogue nest is located on West Main Street, just south of the Blue Point Brewery. This year, watchers of the live cam noticed of the four chicks (which is rare in itself), one of them seems to have injured its leg.
The youngest chick, according to New York City viewer Judith Camacho, who noticed the injury and alerted the local paper, suffered some sort of leg injury last week and she believed it was in need of help. After noticing the injury, the “chatters,” as they call themselves, contacted PSEGLI, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and wild care rehabbers in the area.
The injury can be seen at 7:34 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 14, during a feeding session.
“She has difficulty holding the food and you can see the injury on her left leg. She is such a fighter,” Camacho said. “Survived with three older siblings, which is extremely rare. It will be a pity if she is not helped.”
PSEGLI referred to Jim Jones, one of the bird experts/environmentalists they work with in these situations. After being alerted to the situation, he said he has been watching the nest, on and off, for 24 hours.
He confirmed that the chick does have an injury to the left foot, but he said that there are a few things to consider:
The fledgling has been perching fairly easily, and the foot can grip, but a bit clumsily; it was able to finish the fish meal without incident.
It can also stand on that leg without any apparent leaning.
It can fly, and has been leaving the nest to forage, and possibly hunt. The parents are still there and are feeding the youngster.
“All of these things are good,” he said. “The injury does not—at this time—appear life threatening. We (PSEG, myself, and a wildlife rehabber) are all monitoring the situation. At this time, we are letting things progress naturally. These kinds of injuries are not uncommon, and osprey that I have worked with have recovered. We will keep watching!”
For more information about osprey and to view live webcam feed of the nests, visit https://www.psegliny.com/wildlife/ospreycam.
OSPREY FACTS FROM PSEG
Human garbage is hazardous to the birds. Many times, the osprey will gather garbage, such as plastic bags and fishing wire to build their nests. Fishing lines and strings may wrap around the birds’ feet, preventing them from leaving the nest. Plastic litter is very easy to find and since the birds live close to humans, plastics often are found in nests.
When osprey build a nest on electrical equipment, it puts the nest in danger of catching fire, which can cause significant damage and outages to customers, as well has harm to the osprey. The birds are at high risk of electrocution, as their large wingspan can complete the circuit between closely spaced energized equipment or between an energized wire and a neutral ground wire.
Long Island is home to more than 400 species of birds, including the majestic osprey. Osprey are large, beautiful birds and a popular sight on Long Island. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Long Island’s osprey population decreased and became endangered. The effort to build safe nesting sites on or near waterways has contributed to the rise in the population of osprey.
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blueapple
I read this article and feel like whoever is watching this nest and calls themselves a professional is just not. This particular bird cannot stand on the injured leg, it stands on the opposite leg known as the right leg. If you had really truly watched you would have seen that. The bird known by some as Little bit, Little d, #4, and Mini cannot grip with the foot of the injured leg AT ALL. I am a professional observer as a veterinary professional, and have been for over 50 years, and I can see the leg is injured at the knee and possibly the hip level. I believe it is a luxated capella which is very serious in all animals. If not taken care of, the nerve damage alone will render the foot useless. At this point, it appears the nerve damage has already occured. Of course, to prove me wrong it would take a radiograph of the leg. I have heard the tired, old excuse that biologists use for not intervening as we shouldn't interfere with nature. Like possibly it would take down the natural world as we know it today. That was in the middle of last century when they literally couldn't intervene, even if they wanted to, due to locations of them and the nests specific to birds. Often times, if they saw a hatchling fall from a nest, by the time they travelled to the nest from where they viewed nests, the hatchling was already dead either from the fall or exposure. I understand distancing yourself from responsibility of intervening when you literally can't help but this is a new century and we do have ways to intervene successfully. The tricky part is when a fledgling is active.. But, I say if we can make it to the moon or Mars or outer space we can catch a bird flying or not. If you can't figure it out biologist then find an engineer, any engineer, they will figure it out for you. But to say the bird is eating it's food that she/he hasn't caught herself because s/he can't hunt due to the injury is disingenuous. When the parents migrate, the bird will begin to deteriorate causing unnecessary damage to her body before, what then?, you will walk over after s/he is grounded and bend over and pick her/.him up or maybe a cat or dog will get there first? This bird is the 4th hatch and I don’t have to tell you what that means in an Osprey nest. This bird was not only rejected by her/his mother in the beginning, leaving her/him out in the rain with the other three under mother but s/he almost died many times due to starvation and because of her/his perseverance and smarts she figured a way to get fed and stay alive. It would be more than ashamed to see all that die off because she was injured in a probable attempt at fishing or landing. It would be better if she can’t be returned to the wild, to use her as an ambassador to show children through telling her story that perseverance and smarts can pay off. As clever as she is, I don’t doubt that there is someone in these organizations who can be just as clever and help this worthy animal.
Sunday, August 27, 2023 Report this