The Osprey of Salt Cay

Salt Cay has been home to many osprey over the years. They have nested in many places on the island... on North Beach using abandoned telephone poles as nesting platforms, on the hurricane damaged communications tower on the West side of the island, on the old windmills in the middle of the Salt Cay main salinas and the latest spot is one of the new platforms built last year on the Southeast side of the island by South Creek.

In March 2009, two new osprey platforms were erected... one toward the North of the Creek and one toward the South of the Creek. And the wait began. The platforms are spread out enough to allow for three families of osprey on Salt Cay.

We took a ride down yesterday and the osprey are there!! As we drove up, the mother was sitting in a bush near the water close to the nest as the father osprey flew in with a fish for the two baby osprey.

The 2010 osprey family has choosen the pole toward the South of the Creek and there are currently two babies in the nest. I was not able to get close enough to take a picture of them, but Mama Osprey obviously loves the spot and feels very relaxed there. She just sat in her bush watching us.

Approaching the pole to try to get a picture of the little ones, the Father Osprey started to screech at us. We took the hint and left without bothering them.

When the osprey nested in the Salinas we loved to watch them fly over the house as they fished and fed their family. But, my lord are the baby osprey loud when they are out of the nest and calling to their parents!

Now we are able to watch as they fly over the island on their way South to feed their growing family and with luck the babies will be screeching a little further away once they start flying.