Mating ospreys find safe shelter for their young at OPG’s hydro stations
At a glance
- Special platforms at OPG hydro stations providing safe shelter for mating ospreys.
- Ospreys expected to arrive again this spring, laying around three eggs.
- Birds of prey find ample fishing opportunities at OPG’s hydro sites.
High above OPG’s Chats Falls Generating Station (GS), on the Ottawa River, a pair of mating ospreys are seen each year, spreading their wings, hunting for fish, and feeding their hungry young in a nest built atop a special platform.
In March 2019, OPG’s Environment team installed the 60-foot pole and platform at the site, with the help of Hydro One workers, to give the osprey pair somewhere safer to build their home.
Before the platform, they would often be seen nesting on either the sluice gate structure at the Chats Falls station, or on hazardous electricity poles and transmission towers.
“Ospreys will usually nest on the highest point in an area, to get a better vista of their surroundings,” said John Sanna, Site Environmental Advisor with OPG. “We’ve built these platforms to be the highest point, so that they naturally transfer over and make use of them.”
Out of harm’s way, the ospreys are also presenting less of a danger to OPG employees, who would often face attacks when working near the birds, especially when chicks were in the nest.
As part of the company’s on-site biodiversity program, osprey nesting platforms have been installed at several other hydro sites in eastern Ontario, including at Mountain Chute GS, Barrett Chute GS, and Calabogie GS.
This year, Sanna worked with the Southeast Operations Environmental Support Team and Chats Falls GS staff to install a specialized camera on the platform at the station to keep a closer eye on the ospreys and their brood. The camera will take a picture every time it detects movement.
The monitoring effort is part of the Eastern Operations hydroelectric group’s effort to achieve re-certification from the Wildlife Habitat Council.
“The ospreys are due any day now at Chats Falls. They’ll knock some of the old nest away, clean it up, and get it ready for this year’s eggs.”John Sanna, Site Environmental Advisor with OPG
While they haven’t arrived yet, Sanna expects the mom and dad osprey to return once again to Chats Falls this spring, as they have done every year since the platform went up.
And, as usual, he expects them to be productive.
“The ospreys at all our stations have been producing eggs every year,” he said. “We will usually see about two to three eggs laid on average.
“The ospreys are due any day now at Chats Falls. They’ll knock some of the old nest away, clean it up, and get it ready for this year’s eggs.”
Once the birds have settled into their home for the season, they make good use of the tail ponds and head ponds around OPG’s hydro stations, which offer plenty of fishing opportunities for the birds of prey.
Showing impressive speed, the raptors, also called river hawks or fish hawks, will swoop down to pluck their meals from the water with their large talons.
The camera at Chats Falls will help show what kind of fish the osprey are eating and feeding to their young.
After a summer of feeding, the fledgling osprey will soon take flight themselves.
By early fall, the young and old will have flown the coop for the season.
And the platform will be ready for the mating ospreys to return once again in the spring, to hatch another brood.
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