San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Richmond ospreys welcome their first egg of season
She has produced three eggs each of the past five years and is expected to produce two more within the next week.
As UC Berkeley’s peregrine falcon Annie makes headlines for quickly finding a new mate, a couple of raptors farther north are showing the world what can happen with just a little bit of romantic stability. Rosie and Richmond, a beloved osprey couple perched atop a crane in Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park, welcomed their first egg of the season Tuesday evening, marking their sixth consecutive year of parenting, according to the Golden Gate Audubon Society.
The birds and their speckled egg, expected to be the first of three, are visible through the Audubon Society’s San Francisco Bay Osprey Camera live stream, which for the past five years has offered glimpses into the lives of the birds high above an inactive Richmond shipyard.
Like any good parents, the couple prepared for the egg’s arrival by building up their nest for much of the past month. A pair of ravens had taken the nest apart over the winter as Rosie migrated south. Richmond stayed back — he is among a small number of male ospreys that spend the winter in the Bay Area — and the two lovebirds reunited in early March, Audubon officials said. “Rosie and Richmond inspire us each year . ... They demonstrate true perseverance,” Glenn Phillips, executive director of Golden Gate Audubon, said in a statement.
Rosie laid her egg on camera at 6:01 p.m. on Tuesday. She has produced three eggs each of the past five years and is expected to produce two more within the next week. Rosie and Richmond will take turns keeping the eggs warm until they hatch, probably in mid-May, officials said.
Osprey populations dropped in the 1960s and ’70s because the pesticide DDT was making their eggs brittle. Since the chemical was banned, osprey numbers have rebounded. There are at least 28 osprey couples currently incubating eggs around the Bay Area this year, according to the Audubon Society.
The ospreys’ live nest cam is available at www.sfbayospreys.org, and a video of Rosie laying her egg on Tuesday is on the Bay Ospreys by Golden Gate Audubon YouTube channel.