New osprey nesting platform built near Ballard Locks

You may remember last fall when we reported that an osprey nest was taken down from the train trestle just west of the Ballard Locks. After some research and consideration, Seattle Parks and Recreation, in partnership with Seattle City Light, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, has built a nesting platform in Commodore Park to imitate the former nesting site of the ospreys.

Photo courtesy Shannon Down

Heidi Narte, the acting resource conservation coordinator for Seattle Parks, says the Parks Department consulted Chris Anderson from the Department of Fish and Wildlife when deciding where to place the structure. The old nest was perched atop a 90-year-old  telegraph tower, says Narte. The tower became a safety hazard, and was taken down by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) crews in October. BNSF and the Department of Fish and Wildlife approached the Parks Department in order to build a new nesting site. Seattle City Light has put up similar nesting platforms before, and so Seattle Parks also requested their input.

Narte says Anderson, as a bird wildlife biologist, thought the birds were habituated to the site, and there was a good likelihood the birds would utilize the new site. The 4 foot by 4 foot nesting platform was even equipped with some branches as a sort of “starter” nest, says Narte. As they were setting up the platform, they thought they spotted a male osprey circling above, which is hopeful for the new nesting site, Narte added.

One thought to “New osprey nesting platform built near Ballard Locks”

  1. RE: RE: You happened to pick two of the atircles that I was reading. First commercial Real Estate inflated before housing. You can blame Walgreen’s, Wal Mart, Chili’s, Outback, Urban Outfitters, and Starbuck’s. We don’t need them. They, in many cases were the anchors to residential housing development. What was missing is job centers. I would love to debate that because financing, banking sector jobs, over ran manufacturing in this country. Finance collapse means job loss.Durable goods isn’t far behind. If we don’t have factories, we don’t have equipment. We can also look at lending as killing durable goods. We can’t afford $1K for a washer or dryer. $500 gets you a base model of a stove. Forget about cars when GM introduces a tree hugger model, the Volt for $30K or was it $40K. We have the most screwed up sense of value in the world. We finance everything so money is no object. Let’s sell less for a higher price, that’s the Home Dopey motto. Did I forget to mention Home Dopey, and Lowe’s in the commercial Real Estate section? What you have pointed out is another area of opportunity. Commercial Real Estate is especially over built, but even at that it was twice over priced. First in terms of how many players would use the warehouse style of construction, and second is that as national franchises did income averaging it pushed up the price of all locations of retail space. The price per square foot was used to sell commercial paper that also ended up as security instruments. More plainly, there is a lot that can be done for cheap, and getting cheaper. Rate this comment: 0 0

Leave a Reply