It was an exciting Osprey season at Belle Isle, over 460,000 people watched the Belle Isle nest via the new camera system. For those that don’t know, the camera system was purchased through a online education grant from the city of Boston along with funds from the Friends of Belle Isle marsh. I think given the number of people that got to watch these birds via the camera, the grant goal for online education was more than achieved ! It was a special treat to look into the lives of these beautiful birds.
After laying their eggs, the Belle Isle Osprey nest ultimately failed, and by that we mean they did not successfully have offspring this season. The nesting season can be tricky, and with chicks often taking 50 + days to fully fledge, there is a limited window. The Belle Isle pair just felt there was not enough time to give it a second attempt. After the nest failed the pair continued to build up the nest, what else was there to do but decorate ? The pair added almost 18 inches of sticks since the previous year !
We want to thank everyone that watched the birds, donated funds, or snapped pictures to be added to the “hall of fame” picture gallery on the earthcam site. We will take the camera system down next month as it is very expensive to run, and we don’t want it damaged during winter storms. We will put the camera back up in April of 2022 and hopefully have some chicks next year !! Thanks for the support everyone, we hope you had a much fun watching the Osprey as we did !!!!
Myself and Norman did go out and band a number of chicks in Belle Isle’s sister reservation Rumney Marsh, we banded 5 chicks at 2 different nests.
