A pair of Colt Park osprey had a decent following before the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) adorned their nesting site with an orange cone last week. Now they’re stars.

Apparently the pair has been returning to the site at the top of one of the chimneys of the historic stone barn at Colt Park for several years running, and many local residents have made a point of watching for their annual return as one of the sure signs of spring.

Osprey, like some humans, are monogamous and often mate for life. They also tend to adhere to specific nesting roles depending on gender, with the male identifying a site, typically high on a man-made structure near water and laying the foundation for a large and bulky nest, while the female takes control of organizing the nest itself.

A couple of weeks ago, following the ospreys’ migration back to their nesting site, they attracted more attention than usual when their nest appeared with a large orange cone placed in the middle of it — the result of a last-ditch effort by DEM officials to encourage the pair to relocate their nest to a platform 1,500 feet away in the Mill Gut so that officials could remove the existing nest to protect the integrity of the newly-repaired structure.

Osprey are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, so it is illegal for anyone to harm them, their eggs, and young. The nest, therefore, was only subject to removal as long as the birds had not yet laid eggs, which was determined to be the case prior to the placement of the cone.

In the last week, though, that seems to have changed. The osprey “have hired a good lawyer and are refusing to leave,” wrote one observer last week. “Late this afternoon, the female was on her nest (next to the cone) and the male flew in and delivered a small fish.” 

“I have been driving by and looking at the nest every day, and it appears that the female osprey has been sitting quite a bit on it,” wrote another. “She may now have eggs in there.”

According to Gail Mastrati, assistant to the director at DEM, the agency agrees that the status of the nest has likely changed, and the addition of the large orange cone has not turned them off the nesting site. “The birds’ behavior on April 26 made us think they may have laid their eggs,” she wrote in an email. “DEM does not intend to disturb nests with chicks or eggs in them and likely will delay further attempts to protect the structure until this fall or later.”

The Audubon Society of Rhode Island runs the program that monitors osprey nests throughout the state. If you want to help protect these “fish hawks” and participate in Audubon’s Rhode Island Osprey Monitoring Program, check out http://riosprey.info/.

 If an unoccupied nest is becoming a nuisance on your property, contact the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife at dem.dfw@dem.ri.gov or 401/789-0281 to see if removal is possible.