New Bay Bridge platform attracts nest-building osprey

SANDY POINT — The Maryland Transportation Authority has installed a platform near the Anne Arundel County side of the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial (Bay) Bridge, hoping that an osprey that had tried to build a nest in front of its traffic cameras there will take the hint and build her nest on the platform.

And it appears to have worked.

The 4-by-4-foot wooden platform was installed by Maryland Transportation Authority workers Thursday, April 24, said MdTA spokesman Tamory Winfield on Thursday morning, and soon after an osprey was seen landing on it among the sticks that had been moved from in front of the camera. The bird made several flights to and from the platform, Winfield said.

On Monday morning, April 28, MdTA officials spotted three ospreys around the platform along with a number of sticks, indicating they were building a nest on the platform, Winfield said.

The first osprey first made her appearance on Friday, April 18, when she started building a nest in front of a traffic camera on a structure over the roadway heading east onto the two-lane span. Because it was blocking the camera, the MdTA removed the nest after consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which said that a nest could be removed as long as there were no eggs in it.

On Monday, April 21, the bird was back again in the same location piling sticks in a new attempt to build a nest. Once again, it was removed, but on the morning of Tuesday, April 22, another attempt was made by the osprey to build in front of the camera, officials said. Again, the sticks were removed.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 23, the osprey had returned, only this time she had moved across the overhead structure and started building again in front of a camera monitoring westbound traffic coming off the bridge, Winfield said.

“We made the decision after talking with wildlife officials to build a platform box within 10 feet of the osprey’s present location,” Winfield said, referring to the camera facing west. Such platforms are fairly common and are often seen on the tops of utility poles.

MdTA officials said they were concerned about the bird’s safety as well as the need to keep the camera unobstructed, because she became agitated whenever the camera moved. They said earlier that relocating the camera away from a nest would have been a complicated procedure.

Nesting birds on and around the Bay Bridge are not uncommon, officials said, and when the MdTA sees them, it notifies the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But Winfield said he was not aware of any previous instances where the birds tried to build in front of a camera.

Ospreys, which migrate to the Chesapeake Bay region in the spring from South America, are sometimes called fish hawks, and are a protected species.

An “osprey cam” using one of the traffic cameras will be turned toward the nest once a day from noon to 12:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday, traffic conditions permitting. Log onto www.baybridge.com and go to camera baybridge at gantry n1.