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Thanks for listing the plans on your web site. I live in rural Hampton County, SC where we are fortunate to have Osprey nesting in the immediate area. We have a 2 acre naturally vegetated fish pond in our back yard where they fish. It is flanked by a spring fed river and lesser tributaries, and its banks blend into Cypress & swamp Oak swamp. Today I bought the platform supplies and will build it over the next few days. I am so excited!!!

Where is the best place to put it? In the pond? On the edge of the pond? Or on the 1/4 acre island on the interior of the pond?

We have alligators here and every species of snake on the DNR reptile check list, so we will definitely reinforce the predator guard! We'll let you know how soon the platform becomes occupied.

We have seen Bald Eagles here fishing and all the other common species of fishing birds. There's even a pair of Wood Stork (rare to SC) that come every year.

Thanks
Barb Campbell
EHJV

– Naturally we responded we would be happy to have them use the plans.

Dear Citizens United,

My goodness!!! As I read more from your website...I'm very impressed. On my PC's desktop, I have a picture of the AJ Meerwald...so I get to look at it everyday, here at work or at home. I placed it there last summer when my Mother sent me the picture in email. Why you may ask??? It was my grandfather's boat-the Clyde A. Phillips. I am going to pass your website to my Mother, who is retired in Florida these days. I am retired military, living the good life in a shrimping town in coastal Georgia, where development is now rampant with very little concern for the environment. I work at Altamaha Riverkeeper, a non-profit environmental organization which covers a 14,000 mile watershed; I am the admininstration, financial and tech support person. Our website is www.altamahariverkeeper.org

Recently, your org was mentioned in an email to a list of recipients for another Georgia non-profit organization. Was I ever surprised to read about Millville and the Maurice River! It seems we in Georgia are finally going thru what the NJ coast and farmlands have already been through. Keep up the good and hard work!

Thanks!
Debbi Davis

Jane,

Hey there!

It's Larry Young, Millville Senior High School. I just wanted to drop a line to say how much fun I'm having using the Down Jersey Curriculum.

The students are starting to get into it; they are having fun realizing thatimportant places mentioned in the video are right in their own backyards, and that businesses affected by the wetlands are places where family members worked or are working.

Tomorrow we start our oyster discussion. I am combining the Operation Oyster and the Ahh Shucks lessons into one lesson over a 2 day period (maybe 3- I am in no rush!). The kids are grossed out at the fact that I am bringing in canned, smoked oysters for them to try (hum, sounds familiar?)

They will first be learning more about oysters, and then looking at the timeline and recreating it themselves. We will discuss human and environmental factors involved in shellfish decline over the past century and finally end up with the Ahh Shucks lessons and the cards and comic strips. It should be fun for them.

The only suggestion I would make for the curriculum is to check into adding overheads of some of the information, especially like the timeline that could be used by the teacher, and pictures and diagrams of oysters. That's what I am doing now, making my own.

It's a GREAT program and thanks for the experiences!

Larry Young
Millville Senior High School
Environmental Science

Thank you for the oprey platform plans!!!

My wife and I live on a tidal creek in Wilmington, North Carolina. We moved into the house in the spring of 2000, and watched a pair of osprey raise two that year. Then they hatched two and lost one in a storm, successfully raising one in 2001. In 2002 they raised two again. One of these seemed to lag about two weeks behind the other in development. Getting out of the nest. Flying. Successfully fishing, etc. We nicknamed him/her 'junior'.

Well Junior didn't migrate last winter. He hung around. This last spring he prevented the returning parents from nesting. It was pretty amazing. Junior would haunch down in the bottom of the nest and one or both returning Ospreys would dive bomb him from above. You could hear the 'smack' as bodies collided. One time I even watched a real kung-foo move from Junior. An adult came streaking down in a dive-bombing run and Junior jumped straight up, flipped upside-down, and raked his talons out at the attacking adult. He missed, but it was impressively aggressive none the less!

Eventually both adults would perch on the nest and just look down at Junior as if totally puzzled/disgusted. They finally moved on somewhere else, and Junior squatted in the nest alone all year.

Finally, hurricane Isabel broke the nesting pole off at the ground. We're looking for a 50 foot replacement pole, and plans to rebuild. I've collected 4 plans so far. I've got a pretty good idea of what to do at this point, and your plans helped a lot.

In addition to the box, I want to put a perch back up like there was before. Also, the original nest had a grounding strap running from the nest, which I assume was in the event of lightening. Do you have any comments/thoughts on putting up what is in essence a lightening rod?

Thanks again for your help!
Russ

Keep up the great work. It's what makes folks want to stay here and enjoy our quality of life. Thanks, Ginger

I drove up Sharp St., passing the dam at 5ish last night. I was pleased to see something I've never seen before. Above and below the spillway, circling and diving were 7 to10 birds, clearly being successful hunting the river.

The efforts over the years are obviously paying off. I've spent a lot of hours on that lake, over the course of 25 years, never seeing more than one or two ospreys in a given season. And here were a whole group of birds together. I was in awe.

I feel like it's appropriate to say Thank You. Without you and CU, this would not have happened.

Regards,
Joe Buttner