Osprey nest platform, safe from foxes, set up on Tumby Island, off South Australia's Eyre Peninsula, yields chick

A helicopter lands the nest platform for a pair of osprey on Tumby Island, off South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. The platform, built by Ardrossan community men's shed, was arranged by the state government environment and water department's national parks and wildlife service rangers, working with the Friends of Osprey group (bottom right).
Images by Take 2 Photography, courtesy South Australian government environment and water department (DEW)

A combined operation by a South Australian government environment and water department and volunteer groups to help save the eastern osprey had a big payoff in 2023 with the birth of a chick, viewed on Facebook through a nest camera by delighted twitchers In Russia, the United States of America, Europe and beyond. 

With the eastern osprey considered endangered due to only about 50 breeding pairs across South Australia, a three-metre high nesting platform was installed in 2022 on Tumby Island Conservation Park off Eyre Peninsula, to protect a pair of breeding osprey and any chicks from foxes. Named Marum and Partney, after two of the islands in the nearby Sir Joseph Banks Group, the osprey pair had a 360 degree view of the ocean from their new platform nest of sticks stacked to about 1.5 metres and next to a cliff about 12 metres above sea level.

The new nest platform was installed after the state government’s environment and water department’s national parks and wildlife service had reports, with video, of a fox attacking osprey eggs on 30-hectare Tumby Island, about 600 metres offshore, close to the Tumby Bay township on Eyre Peninsula. Foxes had been accessing the island possibly via a sand bar during low tides in summer.

After fox tracks reappeared in early 2022 on the island after a baiting programme, parks and wildlife service rangers decided to remove any further risk by installing the artificial nest platform, working with the South Australian Friends of Osprey group. The Ardrossan Community Men’s Shed and Progress Association contibuted many hours to quickly and expertly fabricate a composite fibre tower platform.

Tumby Island Conservation Park provided an important refuge for a variety of ground nesting sea birds and coastal raptors including the eastern osprey. Eastern osprey also were particularly susceptible to human disturbance and were known to abandon their nests.

Fourteen artificial nests for eastern osprey had been set up around South Australia by 2023.