Osprey near Grey Eagle gets new nest — one that won't catch fire

A tangle of thorns atop a power pole started sparking the last week in May.

An osprey had started to build a bulky nest of branches and sticks on the pole just north of Grey Eagle, Minn., a small city in Todd County about 40 miles northwest of St. Cloud.

When the sticks caught fire, Stearns Electric Association swooped in to save the day — by setting a taller pole nearby and building a platform to house the nest.

"With the high voltage electricity running through it, it was unsafe for the birds and unsafe for our line crews and our system reliability," said Whitney Ditlevson, communications and marketing supervisor for Stearns Electric.

Ospreys build nests high up and in the open to accommodate their large wing span and hunting style.

"Before [humans] took over, they would nest in dead trees. But what do we do with dead trees? We cut them down," said Vanessa Greene, director of Twin Cities Metro Osprey Watch.

Last year in the eight-county metro area, there were roughly 75 osprey nests on platforms, 30 on cell towers, 25 on ball field lights and 25 on power lines — and only two in trees, Greene said.

"They are adapting to living around humans."

Nests built on power lines sometimes need to be removed, which requires state or federal permits depending on whether there are eggs or chicks.

Glenn Blommel, operations manager at Stearns Electric, used instructions from the DNR to build a new platform. Crews attached the platform to a newly erected power pole on June 4, including some sticks from a nest the osprey had started to rebuild on the power pole.

By June 7, the osprey was rebuilding its nest atop the platform.

Blommel said Stearns Electric has installed new osprey platforms at least a couple times in the past three decades that are still used when the osprey migrate north each year.

Ospreys disappeared from the metro following World War II because of habitat loss and pesticides. In the mid-1980s, conservationists worked to restore the population by building platforms and breeding chicks in captivity, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. The efforts proved successful: Ospreys were removed from the state's list of species with the greatest conservation need within the last decade.

"The population is booming," Greene said.

Melrose-based Stearns Electric is an electric utility cooperative with 27,000 members.

"We live and we work here, as well, so we want to enjoy the central Minnesota beauty and the outdoors," Ditlevson said. "Helping a species like the osprey be able to survive and thrive and have a safe place to live is really a testament to what our company stands for."

Jenny Berg • 612-673-7299

Twitter: @bergjenny