The nest happenings of Helena's westside osprey will soon be broadcast worldwide.
The project, led by Last Chance Audubon Society (LCAS), started Thursday as crews built a mount and fix a camera to the osprey nest along Highway 12 near the Wreck Room. The nest is on a wooden platform on top of a 45-foot-high pole on the westside of Helena.
LCAS consulted with staff at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for information and advice on installing the camera.Â
Helena's westside osprey builds the beginning of its nest in this 2016 IR file photo.
Osprey are raptors and are protected as a migratory species. They are unique among raptors for a diet of live fish and the ability to dive into water to catch them.
A specially designed framework was built by Auxilyum Technical Services of Helena. The frame holds the camera and provides a perch for the osprey to use instead of perching on the camera.Â
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Installation involved attaching the frame and camera near the top of the pole and aiming the camera toward the nesting platform. This work required a bucket truck provided by Duke’s Tree Service of Helena. Treasure State Internet and Telegraph will supply the internet service.
When installed and operational, the action in the osprey nest will be streamed 24/7 through LCAS’s YouTube channel.Â
The original nest was removed from a dismantled cellphone tower during the winter of 2015. Students at Kessler elementary were worried about where the osprey would return to that spring so they wrote letters encouraging the NWE to put up a replacement platform for the osprey to use. In March 2016 the current platform was built and the osprey returned shortly after and used the new platform.
In this IR file photo, NorthWestern Energy linemen install a pole and platform to provide a nesting location for a pair of osprey that were displaced last fall when a nearby cell tower was removed.
According to Corie Bowditch with Montana FWP the osprey return within the first two weeks of April. Last year they returned earlier than usual with the first of the pair showing up on April 7.Â
Last Chance Audubon Society is a local conservation group, founded in 1971, with about 150 members. The mission of LCAS is “promoting understanding, respect, and enjoyment of birds and the natural world through education, habitat protection and environment advocacy."
The osprey webcam project was suggest by LCAS member, Lee Harrison. The board selected it as the focus of the chapter’s 2022 Fall Fundraising effort and more than $4,000 was raised.Â
The board also voted to have the project named in memory of Bill Rainey (1941-2022), a long-time area birder and Audubon member. Rainey had a varied career including work for the Forest Service and as an educator.Â
He especially enjoyed sharing his knowledge and photographs of birds with others and leading birding walks for Birds & Beasleys. He was a dedicated citizen scientist, keeping species records and submitting them to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Iris, thought by some to be the world's oldest known breeding Osprey, has returned once again to her nest site in Hellgate Canyon for the 2022 breeding season. Watch her swoop onto the nest and then begin sprucing up the site by arranging sticks. The Hellgate cam's matriarch has historically arrived at her nest site between April 2 and April 12, and this marks the second year in a row that she has returned on April 7. (Video credit: Montana Osprey Project, Missoula College and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
