EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Osprey on Nest Platform

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus), Family Pandionidae
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA

Explanation:  At home! ... on a manufactured platform just for them, is this family of Osprey, here in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, in the eastern United States.  

Built nesting platforms of raptors are a solution to the loss of natural substrates in areas dominated by human activities.  Here, it is wonderful to see these three Osprey fledglings just about to depart their home for their own adventures.  

But all is not safe, everyone and forever, because there is a platform to nest on.  Here, at the Bay, there is the concern and potential threat of other human-caused stresses.  One in particular is plastic pollution, which includes the degradation of large plastic pieces into microplastics, that can be ingested by marine organisms and carried up the food chain, biomagnified in such top predators as Ospreys.  

Information:
    Hale, R.C., M.E. Seeley, and B.E. Cuker.  2020.  Plastic pollution and the Chesapeake Bay: the food system and beyond.  Pp. 325-348 in Diet for a sustainable ecosystem.  B.E. Cucker, editor.  Springer.