Osprey pair make on-camera debut at Moraine State Park

Wildlife webcam watchers got a new view wednesday when a live-streaming video camera went online showing an osprey couple nesting over Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park.

The camera’s launch marked a milestone in an osprey introduction program that began in 1993.

“It’s taken some time, but with the osprey cam up as they hopefully begin laying eggs and raising their chicks, we can show off our [park’s] wonderful 17,000 acres of serene beauty,” said Jack Cohen, president of the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau, which acquired the grant that funded the webcam project. Mr. Cohen also leads the Moraine Preservation Fund, a nonprofit conservation group that mounted and maintains the camera with the assistance of ITG Networks, a Wexford-based internet support company. The project was sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

When construction of the impoundment on Butler County’s Muddy Creek was completed in 1970, Pennsylvania was home to

few raptors of any kind. Historically, the osprey was never a common bird in what is now Western Pennsylvania. Sometimes called a “fish hawk” because of its feeding preference, it was listed as extirpated, or extinct, in Pennsylvania, in 1979. The state had only one known nesting pair as recently as 1986.

The Game Commission’s Lake Arthur osprey introduction project was one of the state’s first and most ambitious. From six imported fledglings raised on several wooden platforms throughout the park, the osprey population has grown to five nesting pairs. Lake Arthur also attracts several bald eagle nesting pairs.

An osprey can exceed 24 inches in length with a wingspan of nearly 6 feet. The bird can be identified by its dark brown back, bright white breast and belly, prominent dark eye stripes, black patches at the apex of its bent wings, and a characteristic silhouette. Ospreys winter in Central and South America. In the spring, mature ospreys migrate to northern breeding grounds, where nesting pairs occupy the same nests each year, whenever possible.

“We were worried we wouldn’t be finished [installing the camera] on time,” Mr. Cohen said. “They just got back maybe a week ago.”

Normally, three eggs are laid and females do most of the incubating. The eggs hatch in about 40 days and the mothers brood the young for three weeks. Chicks begin leaving the nest about seven weeks after hatching.

In 1997, Pennsylvania ospreys were upgraded from endangered to threatened. In 2017, having met the population standards of the state’s osprey management plan, ospreys were reclassified as “recovered” and are protected under the Pennsylvania Game and Wildlife Code and federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The webcam’s livestreaming images can be viewed at www.visitbutlercounty.com/osprey-cam.