Request submitted by Rachel Canham who is a MSc. candidate at Simon Fraser University

Rachel Canham
MSc. Candidate

rcanham@sfu.ca.
Centre for Wildlife Ecology
Department of Biological Sciences
Simon Fraser University

I work for Environment and Climate Change Canada with the Canadian Wildlife Service. I was hoping you and the members of the Kamloops Naturalist club might be able to help out with one of our projects. Every 5 years we survey Osprey nests upstream and downstream of Kamloops. In May we look for nests that are active and incubating adults, and later in the summer we survey the number of chicks in those same nests.

This past week we surveyed a number of old nest sites near Chase, Pritchard, and Lafarge but we only found about 5 nests that were active and also incubating. It’s most likely that the birds are still nesting in these areas but at different sites. 

Here’s where I was hoping you could help. Would you be willing to ask your members if they know the locations of any active and incubating osprey nests around the Kamloops area? Upstream or downstream are both welcome! An active nest is one where the adult is seen standing on the nest or in the stages of building it, while an incubating nest will have one adult sitting on the nest, tucked in low so that usually only the head is visible, indicating that there are eggs present. Any information would be very helpful for when we conduct our next survey later this summer to count the number of chicks from these nests.