Project 11 - 2008 - School Interactive Kentucky Osprey Nesting Project

KEEP, Inc. is beginning a new osprey education project using KEEP Inc. live and saved 2008 osprey-nesting images. The images are of wild nesting ospreys at Lake Barkley, Kentucky. Ospreys are a Kentucky threatened species with a relatively small number of nests in Kentucky. Most osprey nests are located at Lake Barkley, in Western KY. Live images are refreshed at least once per minute. KEEP, Inc. members and volunteers will be watching the nest daily and managing the camera from far away using computer technology to manipulate the camera providing a variety of close-up images. Occasionally KEEP may pan the camera for a view of Lake Barkley about ¼ mile away. Most osprey nests are located over water unlike the over-land camera nest featured in our project.

If your school students view our Lake Barkley osprey nest or participates in our projects, please e-mail KEEP and let us know about your activities. Sharing how your students are benefiting from KEEP’s projects may help KEEP obtain funding for more projects! KEEP welcomes your ideas, suggestions and comments. During September, KEEP will conduct a random drawing and select a school from our list of participating schools. The selected school will receive a donation from KEEP, Inc. toward your school’s student college scholarship fund in the biological or environmental education field. The donation amount will depend on the amount KEEP receives for this scholarship fund. There are no geographic restrictions on participation. All participating schools will be listed for all to see. The selected school to receive the KEEP donation will be posted at the KEEP web site each September as long as our project continues. Join us in the fun of learning about ospreys and our environment. 

Background Kentucky’s nesting ospreys are a neotropical migratory species, which means the ospreys nest in KY but likely spend the winter somewhere between Southern Florida and South America. Many species of neotropical migrant birds are arriving in their nesting territories earlier each year including ospreys, any reasons why? In recent years Kentucky ospreys are generally at their nesting sites by the second week in March. Reportedly the male and female ospreys do not spend the winter in the same area. Adult female ospreys are about 1/4 to 1/3 larger than the males, generally true for all diurnal (active during the day) raptors or birds of prey. Birds of prey have curved or hooked beaks for tearing food. Most raptor species have very sharp talons on their toes for catching food.

Young ospreys fledge (leave their nests) by about the second week in July. The entire osprey family may revisit the nest until the ospreys are largely gone from Kentucky by the end of September. Juvenile ospreys do not return to Kentucky until they are adults their third Spring when they are old enough to nest. Birds return to nest in the general area where they learned to fly. Adult ospreys usually return to the same nest year after year for as long as they can.

Ospreys prefer to nest on man-made structures over water. These structures usually provide a wide flat surface, which is good for supporting an osprey nest that may weigh an average 140 lbs. The best place for an osprey to nest is on a man-made osprey-nesting platform that has upright bars to better anchor the nest materials preventing the nest from being blown away during high winds. The platforms must be high enough to avoid flooding. Placing nests over water at mid-lake sites greatly reduces predation by raccoons and great-horned owls. In over-all size the osprey is smaller than an eagle and larger than a large hawk. Ospreys have very unique physical characteristics for catching fish. These unique physical characteristics qualifies ospreys as the only member of their scientific family. Additional Lake Barkley osprey information is available within KEEP’s other projects. Much more can be learned about ospreys found worldwide on the Internet and in written materials.

Teachers, students and the public can enjoy studying and learning about ospreys while answering the following questions while viewing our live Lake Barkley nesting ospreys on your computer screen. Nest images refresh at least once every thirty seconds or more often. The KEEP osprey gallery can also be checked to help answer the following questions. KEEP hopes that you enjoy our osprey adventure! 

Teachers Please Note: Art teachers: You may wish to have students draw and color a scene from our osprey nesting images. Select one drawing/painting from your school and produce a digital photograph close-up of the art piece and e-mail the image to KEEP in a small file size (150 kb +/-). KEEP will select samples of the best images from all schools submitting artwork and post for all viewers to see at KEEP’s web site. English teachers: Select one narration or poem (one page limit-font 12) from your students’ writings about our nesting ospreys and e-mail to KEEP. KEEP will post several of the best examples for public and school viewing at KEEP’s web site. Within school guidelines for public viewing, please list the student’s name or initials, grade, school, state and nation if other than the US when e-mailing student work to KEEP. If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please share them with KEEP. KEEP invites your school to help develop quality educational materials that you would like to see posted at our KEEP web site for other schools. KEEP will credit your school for all listed materials. If you think KEEP should list “core content” type materials to this section that may be beneficial to other teachers, teachers are invited to submit these materials for possible posting. These materials should apply to osprey nest viewing, pre-site or follow-up studies. Please send materials in Word format, font 12.   

Click here for the osprey questions.