New and Improved Support for Osprey

Over the past several years, the VEC has been constructing nesting platforms for osprey so that the birds don’t nest on VEC equipment, which can cause outages and electrocution of the birds themselves. Across the territory there are approximately a dozen of these platforms that VEC’s constructed over the last decade or so.

Of course, building stuff also means maintaining stuff. And osprey platforms are no exception.

Traditionally, the platforms have been built with the round, wood ends of discarded wire spools. But as these platforms degrade over time, they can fall down. This summer, for instance, a wooden platform off Route 36 in Fairfield that had a nest on it came down. (Luckily, the birds were ok.)

To repair this platform, VEC used a discarded 30” by 30” square aluminum road sign donated by the village of Johnson instead of the wooden spool ends. Crews mounted the sign to the top of the pole and added two brackets to support the sign. Then they added two cross arm bases as “perches” for ospreys to use when they build and watch over the nest. Crews also inserted some longer bolts through the sign to create “catches” that would help hold sticks in place when osprey nest next year. (In our Grand Isle District, over the past few years, VEC crews have replaced five of the six nesting platforms with metal or plastic materials.) The public – whether they live nearby or travel frequently by the nests – enjoys watching the birds’ activity during nesting season, noted Tucker Williams, one of VEC’s Operations Supervisors. 

Williams, who coordinated the replacement of the platforms said the project “worked out great all the way around."

“It’s nice to have something up there that will be durable, that will benefit the birds, the public, as well as VEC, hopefully for some time to come,” he said.