THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504140200
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
An osprey pair down on Knotts Island probably has its own Easter basket of eggs by now and islanders aren't in danger of losing their electricity, thanks to a unique solution by Virginia Power.
The big hawks began building a nest on a power pole at Knotts Island about two weeks ago. So Virginia Power played a game of one-up-manship, literally, and constructed a nesting platform on stilts 10 feet above the conductor, said Superintendent Richard Capps at Virginia Power's Virginia Beach Office.
``Now she has a nice high perch 10 feet above the line,'' Capps said.
Osprey enjoy building their big stick nests on high perches where they have a 360-degree view of their surroundings, thus their affinity for power poles. Since the birds are a protected species, Virginia Power must find a way to accommodate both the osprey and thousands of power users.
This is the second time in Virginia Beach that the company has outwitted determined osprey by erecting a nesting platform right on top of the birds' power pole of choice. The other can be seen on Northampton Boulevard at Lake Smith.
So far the solution appears to be ideal. The osprey like it and it's more economical for Virginia Power than any other option, said Capps.
``The osprey will go to the highest point,'' he explained. ``You take the sticks off (a power pole) and they'll come right back, but you build it higher and they go to the higher perch.''
Another nesting platform nearby would do the trick, if it were higher than the power lines, he added. ``But of course it's cheaper just to build a nest on top.''
It's also less expensive to build a new platform than to deal with less palatable alternatives that might have occurred in the next few days, he went on. A power outage would have been very expensive and it might have killed the osprey also.
``If it had rained, we'd have lost all of Knotts Island,'' Capps said. ``The sticks come in contact with the conductor. When the sticks get wet, they will short-circuit the conductor and we have a power outage.''
In addition, if Virginia Power had not discovered the new abode before the female laid her eggs , it would have been illegal for the company to move the nest at all. ``We would have had to de-energize that pole and route the line around the nest,'' Capps explained.
And this particular osprey pair was in a hurry. ``She was moving along pretty fast,'' he said.
Because of the osprey's protected status, Virginia Power had to get permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service even to disturb the nest building process. Capps sought advice from staff at Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge on Knotts Island.
The nesting activity was discovered about two weeks ago Friday. Virginia Power began building the platform the following Monday. The osprey were not frightened off by the activity.
``While we were building, she flew in with a long stick,'' Capps said. ``She made some circles to see what were doing.''
When the platform was complete, the partial nest was raised up in a bucket and carefully placed in its new location. It didn't take long for the crew to know they had been successful.
``When we were finished,'' Capps said, ``we saw her come in and land.''
And the big birds have been there ever since, a success story even the Easter bunny couldn't improve on.
P.S. LEARN ALL ABOUT OSPREY from an expert at the Virginia Beach Audubon Society meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Westminster-Canterbury. Reese Lukei, who monitors osprey at Back Bay and on the Lynnhaven River, will speak. ILLUSTRATION: Photos above and right by VIRGINIA POWER;
Photo below by MARY REID BARROW
An osprey nest on a Knotts Island power pole threatened to cause an
outage, so before the female had laid her eggs, Virginia Power
workers installed a nesting platform 10 feet above the conductor.
The big birds have been there ever since.
by CNB