A five-week old osprey chick was the star of the show on Aug. 1 during a Thunder Bay Audubon Society trip to see the birds and their nesting platforms on Fletcher Pond.

Two boats carrying a small group of society members and others visited one of 19 platforms on the 7,000-acre lake. Wildlife biologist and bird enthusiast Sergej Postupalsky brought down a chick from the nest, and while mom circled overhead he showed off the bird’s features.

The spotted feathers on her chest indicated the chick is a girl, Postupalsky said. Like all ospreys, she has four toes on each foot tipped with sharp talons and lined with raspy scales. Along with these rasps, her two opposable toes will help this fishing bird grip her prey after diving from midair to catch it. She hadn’t flown yet, but Postupalsky said she likely would in two weeks or so.

“Like all birds of prey, the females are bigger,” he said. “Adult males weigh about three pounds, and females weigh about four.”

Postupalsky showed the crowd the bands around the bird’s ankles, both for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and for his own identification. He’s a licensed bird tagger, he said, and some of his ospreys have been spotted overwintering as far away as northern Argentina. The oldest osprey he spotted bearing his tags was 24, a year shy of the oldest tagged osprey ever spotted by anyone.

That 24 years represents less than half of the time Postupalsky has been watching ospreys on Fletcher Pond. Thunder Bay Audubon Society President Linda Klemens said she’s grateful for the work he’s done for the ospreys and other birds around the lake. She nominated him for the 2013 O.B. Eustis Award, given by conservation group Huron Pines and named for the late conservationist, birder and Alpena native.

Postupalsky accepted the award on Aug. 1 at Jack’s Landing Resort before the boat ride. Eustis’s daughters Ginny and Helen presented the award, and Postupalsky said it’s an honor to get it. He knew Eustis personally, and the birder would frequently spot nests for Postupalsky and others to check out.

Postupalsky said he joined the National Audubon Society in 1958, and his love of birding fueled a “hobby that had gotten out of hand.” He first came to the pond in 1962 to document osprey, bald eagle, goshawk and red-shouldered hawk populations in the area, keeping records of the pond’s ospreys ever since. At that time, there were 11 nesting pairs of osprey on the lake. That grew to 23 in the 1980s, thanks in part to a ban on the pesticide DDT from the previous decade, and for a while Fletcher Pond was the lower peninsula’s “Osprey Capital.”

“There were two years in a row where over 30 young were raised here,” he said.

Nesting pairs dwindled since then, and 2014’s hatchling survival is the worst that Postupalsky has seen in the years he’s come to Fletcher Pond, he said. The chick he and society members saw is one of only three to survive among 15 nesting pairs, less than a third of which laid eggs.

Postupalsky said he thinks changes in Fletcher Pond might be to blame for the downward trend in Osprey numbers. For one, it’s infested with Eurasian water milfoil, an invasive seaweed that can form thick mats as it grows. It provides excellent cover for fish, making it harder for ospreys to spot prey. Water levels are also higher than in the past.

The harsh winter and late thaw may have made things worse, Postupalsky said. Cold weather made for a late ice breakup, and the lingering chill and a cool, rainy spring worked against the birds as well. Only four pairs actually laid eggs, and one didn’t hatch. Others died later, likely either from starvation or exposure.

“It’s been an unusual year that affected a lot of wildlife in many places, not only ospreys,” he said.

All is not lost, however. Ospreys are a long-lived species, and they can afford to have a bad year or two for breeding without taking a big hit to their populations, Postupalsky said. Plus, nesting pairs elsewhere are having better luck. Four pairs near Tomahawk Creek Flooding in Presque Isle County are raising six chicks altogether.

The species is now more widely spread across the state, Postupalsky said. Fletcher Pond’s birds helped, since many of their chicks grew up to nest near other area lakes. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ “hacking” program, started in 1998 and done with the help of a number of local partners, has helped establish a population in Southern Michigan as well. There are now around 60 nesting pairs in the southern part of the state. Some of the chicks captured and released there through the program came from Fletcher Pond.

Klemens agreed that Fletcher Pond has contributed to restoring the lower peninsula’s osprey population. Lots of lakes are too crowded with recreational boaters, and this keeps ospreys away. Most of Fletcher Pond’s shore is undeveloped, and its submerged stumps make high-speed recreational boating difficult to impossible.

“When you think of the concept that an osprey has to have to nest and to be able to fish and feed their young, and raise the chicks, you’re very limited,” she said. “So many lakes are totally inappropriate, they’re totally out of the picture.”

Postupalsky said he’s hopeful next year’s conditions will be better for the birds, and Klemens said Thunder Bay Audubon Society members will continue to support the pond’s osprey project, both financially and by volunteering. It’s funded through an endowment with the National Audubon Society, and volunteers repair the nesting platforms each spring and block them from next year’s nesting geese in the fall.

To get involved, visit Thunder Bay Audubon Society online: www.thunderbayaudubon.com/

Jordan Travis can be reached via email at jtravis@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688. Follow Jordan on Twitter @jt_alpenanews. Read his blog, A Snowball’s Chance, at www.thealpenanews.com.