Second Osprey Chick Hatches At Island Beach State Park Nest

Osprey parents Bay and Bandit would make Pete McClain proud.

The pair are carefully tending two newborn chicks on the nest high up on a pole outside the Island Beach State Park Interpretive Center. The second baby was born on Thursday afternoon.

And that will be it for this year. Bay, the female, laid three eggs in the spring. But recently she pushed one egg to the end of the next, which means it was probably not viable.

Island Beach is now home to about 30 osprey nests, according to The Friends Of Island Beach website. But it wasn't always like this.

McClain, who was then deputy director of the state Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, decide to do something about it.

Environmental conditions were grim for the large raptor birds back in the early 1970s. Nesting sites were hard to come by, due to the rapid development of wetlands. DDT and other chemicals had been heavily used in 1950s and 1960s for mosquito control and worked their way into the food chain.

Osprey nests were dwindling. By 1968 there were only 12 osprey nests at Island Beach State Park. By 1974, the number had dropped to just one. Osprey eggs laid during those years were too thin and brittle for the chicks to survive the incubation period.

McLain founded the Osprey Project along with Teddy Schubert, a conservation officer with the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife. The two traveled to Maryland, where osprey eggs were healthier because there was less pesticide contamination and more nesting areas.McLain and Schubert made the often perilous climbs to osprey nests high in the sky - sometimes dropped in by helicopter, sometimes by clambering up utility poles - and removed some of the healthy eggs.

The healthy eggs were put into incubators, then trucked back to New Jersey. They were then gently placed in osprey nests at Island Beach and down the coast, in the hopes the osprey parents would accept the new eggs.

Within 20 minutes, the adult osprey returned to the nests and began incubating the new eggs. The egg transfer program continued from 1975 thorough 1981, when there was no longer any need for it. Today there are more than 500 osprey nests in New Jersey.

Osprey have typically returned to Island Beach in late March, after spending the winter in South America.And you can watch the whole process unfold on the Pete McClain Osprey Cam.

It costs roughly $5,000 a year to maintain the camera and its infrastructure, an expensive venture.
Donations for the camera system allows the Friends of Island Beach State Park to keep the camera running. If you enjoy watching Bay and Bandit and eventually their chicks, please consider making a donation.
You can view the osprey cam here: https://www.friendsofibsp.org/live-cams/osprey-cam/

Please consider making a donation to keep the cam operating here: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofIslandBeach/…/18015191938/
Image: Friends of Island Beach State Park Facebook page.