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Lonely Osprey Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

A single male osprey has been looking for love in the wrong place – a Seattle City Light tower along the Duwamish River.

Seattle can be a tough place for singles to meet their match, even when you’re an osprey.

 

Photo of the lonely osprey.

This single, male osprey has been trying to make a nest at a tower near City Light’s Duwamish Substation. (Photo courtesy of Stephen Ramaley, KOMO TV)

Without online dating or other help to turn to, a single male osprey has been looking for love in the wrong place – a Seattle City Light tower along the Duwamish River.

Photo of transmission tower with nest material.

Parts of the nests built by a lonely male osprey are still visible on this tower.

The solo raptor, which weighs about 4 pounds and has a wingspan of about 6 feet, has been trying to build a large nest with sticks on the tower. Nesting season is over for the year, but wildlife biologists speculate that he is trying to keep busy while waiting for his next chance to hook up.

“He could be trying to make himself more attractive to potential mates,” City Light Wildlife Biologist Ron Tressler said.

But as with so many aspects of love, trying to figure out what this bird is really thinking, gets a little hazy, Tressler said. “It’s hard to tell.”

What is clear is that the osprey’s nest building work is dangerous for the bird and bad for the utility. Nest materials could catch on fire, or cause a short circuit that triggers a large outage and kills the bird.

Since July, City Light has been trying to encourage the lonely osprey to try better spots for finding the right girl and working to prevent outages.

Utility crews added rubber insulation to the terminal wires closest to the nest starts and removed nest material. Unfortunately, as soon as the crews removed the sticks, the determined would-be Romeo started building a new one.

 

Photo of transmission tower.

The tower where the lonely osprey is trying to nest. The bright orange areas are insulation added to protect the bird and avoid outages.

To help this lonely osprey with his living arrangements, City Light is working to find a location nearby to install a nesting platform with hopes the bird will move in to what could become more than a bachelor pad.

Now, all he needs is a single female osprey that would like a date.

Single Male Osprey Seeks Soul Mate: Good looking, hard worker who’s going places seeks single female for a committed relationship. Brown feathers with a white crown. Piercing yellow eyes. He enjoys long soars over the Duwamish River at sunset and dinners of fresh fish. Lady ospreys, he’s a catch. Contact him near Hamm Creek. Serious inquiries only.