General

Osprey pair are back for another season at Fort Calhoun Station

The osprey pair that call Fort Calhoun Station their home during the spring and summer have returned to their nest.

As they do each year, they are busy fortifying their nest, bolstering the walls with sticks and adding grass, moss and leaves to soften the nest’s lining.

Last year, the female osprey laid her first egg on April 17, with two more arriving over the following week. So keep an eye on their webcam – we could start seeing eggs a couple weeks from now.

Lewis and Clark, the peregrine falcons at OPPD’s North Omaha Station, also have a webcam. They returned to their Nebraska nest in late February and so far, Clark has laid three eggs.

The ospreys’ nest, which sits on a platform on top of a 50-foot power pole, originally sat atop on a 360-foot metrological tower at Fort Calhoun. The nest was moved when the tower was taken down as part of decommissioning efforts.

Conservation efforts paying off

The Fort Calhoun nest is the only known nesting site in eastern Nebraska. Observers from around the world keep tabs on the raptors, which have 5½-foot wing spans,  each year via the webcam.

Ospreys have slowly grown in numbers along the North Platte River in western Nebraska over the past 15 years.

Loss of habitat and widespread use of DDT have negatively affected ospreys, peregrine falcons and bald eagles. But conservation efforts and artificial nesting structures have helped all three species rebound.