Rachel Hagan, Yorke Peninsula Country Times
Sadly, the Coobowie osprey nest is down from six birds to just three, but osprey experts say there is a silver lining among all the bad news.
Earlier on in the year, there was an osprey chick which wasn’t expected to make it in such a large nest and it, unfortunately, died, leaving the nest with three healthy chicks.
But Coobowie locals Malcolm and Marie Stanton said this was only the beginning of trouble for the osprey family.
“There was a strong wind change coming — you could hear it,” Mrs Stanton said.
“The chick must have been flapping and the wind just took her, and she couldn’t get back to the nest because where she was there was head wind and she just would not have been capable.
“We thought she was dead but, because she had a tracker, we could find her.”
The lost chick, which is now named Marie after her rescuer, was found exhausted on a nearby cliff ledge.
Mrs Stanton said the bird was very scared when they approached and immediately flew out into sea, right into the path of some pacific gulls.
“She turned around and landed back on the beach, but so did the gulls,” Mrs Stanton said.
“I didn’t want to make her fly back out, but I didn’t want them to get her.”
Mrs Stanton eventually managed to get to Marie, and a team of community members and experts was able to bring her back to health.
Unfortunately, her old nest was no longer an option because there was a fear of scaring the two remaining chicks, Missy and Libby, straight into the mouths of the gulls.
Luckily Scottish osprey expert Roy Dennis was in town and had the idea of relocating Marie to the Gleeson’s Landing nest, which had two very young chicks.
The plan worked, and Marie is now safe and sound with her new adopted family.
However, there was more bad news to come from the Coobowie nest with the suspected loss of the osprey mother.
South Australian raptor expert Ian Falkenberg said he strongly suspected she was a mortality, and it was unlikely she was still alive after this length of time away from the nest.
The female osprey defends the nest while the male hunts, so the two remaining chicks still have a source of food coming in with their dad currently working in overdrive.
“The fact this has happened just after the birds have fledged is a bit of a silver lining… in the coming weeks they may be able to fish and hunt for themselves,” he said.
Ospreys mate for life, but Mr Falkenberg is convinced another lone female may join the Coobowie male before the next breeding season.
“That happens with a lot of raptors, not just osprey, but there is some good evidence overseas that that’s the likely scenario that might play out,” he said.
Despite all the recent sad news, Mr Falkenberg said it had been an incredible breeding season on Yorke Peninsula for osprey with 10 hatched young.
“Other parts of the state aren’t doing so well, but Yorke Peninsula at the moment is showing promising results,” Mr Falkenberg said.
“Largely I think it’s the disturbance levels are kept to a minimum… and getting artificial platforms in the right locations where ospreys can breed safely and securely — those two things have had a big impact.
“And people such as Malcolm and Maire, they’re doing a fantastic job, as well as other community members — I think I have to give credit to what the community has done and how they’re embraced the species.”
Friends of Osprey, the conservation group, has recently completed a round of nest observations, as well as banding and tracking young birds.
Group members were accompanied by Mr Dennis, who had accepted an invitation to spend five days travelling around the Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas.
Mr Dennis told the group that the population of Scottish osprey stood at just one pair in the 1950s but, through concerted conservation efforts like those now happening in South Australia, the birds are now in their hundreds and have spread beyond Scotland to England and Wales.
He said he believed that the habitat and food sources in SA were such that, with a helping hand, the species could bounce back relatively quickly.
Friends of Osprey committee member Kylie Correll said that communities around the Yorke Peninsula were showing a growing passion to see the birds thrive with coastal towns heavily engaged in supporting the conservation work.
This article appeared in Yorke Peninsula Country Times, 23 December 2024.