A young osprey that was the focus of rescue attempts last week to free it from the baling wire tangled around its feet apparently did fly free of its nest, but the flight was short; its carcass was found across the river, hanging upside down in a tree on Kiger Island.
The parent osprey circled above the dead fledgling over the weekend.
Jeff Picton, the executive director of the Chintimini Wildlife Center, went up in a bucket truck last Thursday with a Pacific Power lineman in the hope of reaching the nest and removing the twine from the bird’s foot. The truck’s 100-foot reach was a few feet shy of the nest, but he nevertheless could see that no birds were inside, although baling twine was in the nest.
The discovery kindled some hope that the bird had freed itself from the twine.
In fact, neighbors saw a young osprey flying, trailing the twine, but it’s evident now that the twine soon became tangled in the tree, again trapping the bird.
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Osprey, a black-and-white fish-eating raptor, are a federally protected species, but they are prone to using orange baling twine to build their nests, which is dangerous for their young.
Picton gave this emailed account of finding the bird:
“(Saturday) morning, we received a call from the property owners reporting they had seen an osprey hanging upside down from twine in a tree across the river from the nest, and it did not appear to be moving. I went out there and was able to get within 100 feet of the bird and confirmed that it was dead.
“It was hanging from one foot about 30 feet up in the top of a tree and was attached to a softball-sized wad of orange bailing twine. I also got close enough to see the plumage of the bird, and was able to confirm that the bird was a juvenile (this year’s bird). Another bird was flying around the dead one calling out, and it got close enough for me to see that it was an adult, no doubt one of the parents. It was very sad to watch.”
Picton said that no effort will be made to recover the dead osprey because it is at the top of a tree overhanging the river, and the tree would be difficult to access and difficult to climb.
Theresa Novak is the city editor and opinion page editor at the Corvallis Gazette-Times. She can be reached at theresa.novak@lee.net or 541-758-9527.