Osprey and their young at the Belle Haven Marina platform nest on June 18, 2025.
They usually grow up and leave in July — ospreys, 22-inch-tall, brown and white raptors with a 65-inch wingspan, birds that nest and raise their young near open water in Northern Virginia from March to August.
Many people are intrigued watching them dive feet first to catch fish with their sharp talons, take them to the nest, rip them apart and eat and feed them to their young. They build nests, a jumble of sticks, or refurbish old nests every spring, in Northern Virginia generally along or near the Potomac and Occoquan Rivers, in trees, on platforms, duck blinds, poles and channel markers.
This year has brought some troubling signs for these impressive birds.
Ospreys in Dyke Marsh
For many years, ospreys have returned to Dyke Marsh in March and a pair has built a nest and raised their young on a platform at the Belle Haven Marina on the northern edge of Dyke Marsh. This year, the pair had two chicks, but around the end of June, one had perished.
Larry Cartwright, who has conducted a breeding bird survey in Dyke Marsh since 1994, reported on June 30, “The female was feeding the survivor today and the nestling was taking the offered food quite readily but looks a little stunted in development. The bird just sat there after eating with a quick break to jet a nice stream of excrement over the side of the nest, but little additional movement.” His July 6 report was more encouraging: “The youngster was more active today, standing up in the nest and flapping its wings for the first time. Hopefully, fledging will occur within the next two weeks.”
Ospreys at Porto Vecchio
For over a decade, osprey pairs have successfully raised young in nests on two platforms near Porto Vecchio condominiums next to Hunting Cove at the confluence of the Potomac River and Hunting Creek. Three chicks from the northeast nest and two chicks on the southeast nest born this spring are now flying.
Several Porto Vecchio residents have had to come to the birds’ rescue over the years. Ospreys from these nests have died from fishing line entanglements at least twice in the past. Last summer, two residents rescued a chick from fishing line and this year, rescued two more chicks, one after falling from the nest and the second from twine wrapped around its wing.
More Ospreys
Jay Spiegel has had an osprey camera on a Little Hunting Creek nest behind his house for several years. This year a pair had two chicks, but Spiegel reports that around June 23, the chicks disappeared. He does not know why.
For several years, a pair has nested atop a light pole over Walt Whitman Middle School’s softball field. Observers saw an osprey there this year several times, but no one confirmed nestlings.
Challenges for Ospreys
Ospreys appear to be having a difficult year. Definitive data await final surveys. Local experts point to stressors like a weak shad run this spring on the Potomac, warming waters that affect the timing of fish migration, extreme cold and heat events during the hatchling phase, fewer ideal breeding areas because of ever encroaching development, competition with increasing eagle populations and more severe storms.
A May 2025 survey of nesting ospreys on Virginia’s Delmarva Peninsula, led by Dr. Bryan Watts of the College of William and Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology (CCB), reported a 90 percent decline there. He recorded nine pairs in the survey area and said that compared to past surveys from the 1970s and 1980s, “the 2025 survey reveals a nearly complete collapse of the population.” Watts concluded, “The most likely cause of the decline is prey availability. However, no osprey diet studies have ever been conducted within this site, and we know very little about trends in fish availability.”
CCB scientists previously reported that in the lower Chesapeake Bay, a silvery fish called Atlantic menhaden are nearly 75 percent of ospreys’ diet. Some conservationists argue that large-scale, commercial menhaden harvests are depleting menhaden stocks and that government officials should reduce current limits on the number landed or caught.
There have been several efforts in the Virginia General Assembly in recent years to require a comprehensive study of the menhaden population, but those bills have failed. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s website says, “Atlantic menhaden are the target of Virginia’s largest commercial fishery, run by a company called Omega Protein, and its affiliates. Typically turned into fishmeal and fish oil products in a process known as ‘reduction fishing,’ the small schooling fish also are a key food for iconic predators like striped bass, bluefish, and ospreys. All other states have banned the practice of reduction fishing.”
More Osprey Facts
Ospreys mate for life and usually return to the same nest every spring. They typically incubate one to four eggs for 36 to 42 days.
Because they add materials to their nest year after year, a nest can be ten to 13 feet deep, three to six feet across and weigh up to 250 pounds. They may “decorate” their nests with items like shoes, cans, fabric, fast food debris and toys. Ospreys can become entangled in things in the nest, like plastic bags, balloon ribbons and monofilament fishing line.
Over their 15-to-20-year lifetime, ospreys may migrate more than 160,000 miles.
In the early 1970s, osprey numbers plummeted and scientists concluded that the eggshells of ospreys, eagles and other birds were so thin that they broke during incubation and birds failed to hatch. They concluded that the hatching failure was due to pesticides that moved up the food chain. In 1972, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT and populations recovered, until recently.