The gift that keeps on giving...This platform was a Christmas present from my mom. She made a donation to NJ Conserve Wildlife for them to install an osprey platform in the marsh behind my house. In March of 2010 volunteers arrived, and within an hour, the platform was ready for business. Many ospreys used the platform as a dinner table throughout the summer, but no birds used it to nest. In 2011, two ospreys build a nest and laid one egg. The chick hatched on June 25, 2011. Soon after, there was a noreaster that blew both the chick and nest off the platform. A friend and I put a piece of plywood on the platform and placed the osprey chick back in the nest. The parents returned to the nest. That same day a chick from another nest, whose nest was also destroyed in the storm, was placed on my platform for the adults to foster it. It worked!
In 2012, a pair hung around all spring and summer, but never nested. It appeared to be the same pair (the female is banded), but I can't be positive.
2013...so far, so good! Incubation has begun.