Belle’s Journey Then he dove plummeting toward the water As he built up speed he spread his wings and shot back up toward the sky He hovered again still calling out If all went well his aerial acrobatics would attract the attention of his mate or if his mate had not survived the winter of another female osprey The alewife he was carrying would show what a good fisherman he was Four days before he had arrived on Martha’s Vineyard after a three-week trip from his winter home in South America After five months in the vast wet grasslands of central Venezuela where he spent his winters something inside him had begun to stir He started to feel restless and the urge to head north to his summer home became irresistible So here he was ready to raise a new family The trip was nearly 3,500 miles from his winter waters to his nest on Martha’s Vineyard This was the eighth year he had nested at this spot Each year the same female arrived a couple of days after he did and accepted his offering of fresh fish and a newly trimmed nest They had raised ten young during their years together Mated male and female ospreys do not migrate together His mate spent her winters farther south than he did deep in the Amazonian rain forest of Brazil She was three years older and born twenty miles west of their nest across Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay on the Westport River This year she was a little late She had run into a bad storm in Florida and hunkered down to wait it out Females can take their time heading north because males claim the territory which is why they usually get back to their northern homes first 2
Reunion on the Marsh She arrived that day flying low over Vineyard Sound As she crossed the jetty that protected the channel from Tashmoo to the sound she saw her mate showing off high above their nest She flew up to him and circled down to their nest He eagerly dove to join her and offered his catch which she greedily snatched from his talons She tore off pieces of the tough fish with her big strong beak which was almost as sharp as her talons She hadn’t eaten in two days and was hungry after her long trip It was the beginning of another spring for these two ospreys 3
Chapter 2 The Scientists On a warm Martha’s Vineyard day later that spring two men drove their jeep down the bumpy dirt road that leads to Lake Tashmoo The scientist called Dr B by his students mostly so they wouldn’t have to say his complicated last name was in the passenger seat His good friend Dick was driving They were on their first nest survey of the season Each spring they visited all the nest poles on the island to see which migrating osprey pairs had returned safely By this time any pair that was going to breed would have eggs in their nest Later in the summer Dr B and Dick would visit all the nests again to see how many young were being raised It was slow going on this road A wicked nor’easter storm had dumped buckets of rain on the island over the past two days so the jeep dove into giant potholes full of water and then climbed up like a boat cresting a heavy swell before plunging down into the next muddy pool 5
