When birds nest, sparks fly
Ospreys and other birds of prey make their homes atop utility poles and cell towers. It's a problem most foul.
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published October 10, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - Dave Bruzek wishes ospreys would kindly stop building nests on his utility poles.
He wishes they would find nice trees in which to raise their young. That would be the normal, sensible, birdie thing to do. Instead, they choose stadium light standards, cell towers and the utility poles of Progress Energy Florida.
Utility pole nesting wouldn't nettle the company biologist if the big fish hawks practiced better hygiene. Alas, they are sloppy creatures with delicate digestive systems. After gulping a plump catfish or a plump mullet, their innards boil.
Look out below!
Mix bird dung, rain or high humidity with fragile power company equipment and, Florida, we have a problem.
Hummmma. Hummmma. Hummmma.
That's how electric current should sound as it passes through the wires. But after an osprey has let loose, it is more like HUUUMMMA! HUUUMMMA! SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! KERPOW!
Somewhere in a house in west-central Florida, lights flicker. Perhaps they even go out. In a teenager's bedroom, the night's blogging session is cut short when the computer fails. A desperate housewife moans in frustration as Desperate Housewives vanishes from the TV screen.
All because of bird poop.
The exploding nestHow much of a problem is bird poop to Progress Energy Florida and to its 1.5-million customers? Ospreys crash the system about 65 times during nesting season. But one crash can inconvenience thousands of people.
In 1997, an osprey nest exploded in flames on a utility pole near Orlando and closed traffic on I-4. In 2004, a series of power shutdowns in North Florida was blamed on osprey nests.
If ospreys were the size of hummingbirds nobody would complain. But ospreys, among Florida's largest birds of prey, have wingspans exceeding 5 feet. Their nests sometimes top 500 pounds. They seldom miss a meal, which means their digestive tracts work overtime.
Bruzek is Progress Energy's "lead environmental specialist" but the title hardly touches on the exotic challenges of his job. The photos on his St. Petersburg desk do.
"Here's a photo of some turkey vultures," he says. Some turkey vultures? In the photo, hundreds are using a power company tower as a hotel - and a toilet. They leave droppings on the insulators. The accumulation, wet from rain, helps electricity arc from wire to pole, taking out a large neighborhood from the power grid.
Weary company linemen are dispatched to clean dirty insulators with pressure hoses. Then they humbly hang effigies of turkey vultures from the towers, upside down, to scare the real vultures away. Sometimes it works. But sometimes employees have to wonder if vultures are chuckling as they soar above it all.
"This is a picture of monk parakeets."
Escaped pets, monk parakeets are so well-established in Florida that they are displacing native species in suburban back yards. Once monk parakeets and their nests exhaust the trees, they move on to power company poles, where their copious droppings cause shorts that lead to lights out.
Sitting at his desk, shuffling photos, Bruzek next offers evidence of ospreys nesting boldly on utility poles and towers. The photos suggest a species indifferent to the concept most of us might call "home." Ospreys erect nests on tower tops inches away from blinking lights. As a momma osprey feeds her chick, 100,000 volts surge through the system a few feet below.
Hummmma! Hummmma!
"There is some speculation that some unexplained shorts may be caused by what are called streamers," Bruzek says. "When large birds take off, they occasionally shoot out a streamer of excrement. There have been documented cases whereby this streamer causes a momentary electrical arc between energized components, possibly causing an outage."
KERPOW!
The bird manThe bird man is 51. He has short gray hair, dark-blue eyes and a triathlete's build. Sometimes as Bruzek pedals his bike on the Pinellas Trail he looks for birds. When he drives a good stretch of road in his car, he leans his head out the window and watches the sky.
He is thrilled whenever he encounters an eagle, a caracara or even an osprey. Sometimes one of his kids in the back seat pipes up: "Dad, look where you're going!" and he steers the car back onto the pavement.
Growing up near the Hudson River, he was one of those boys who loved anything with fang, feather or fur. His patient mother never objected to the occasional snake he brought home in his pocket. When he got older, he wanted to be Jacques Cousteau. Perhaps he'd have a face-to-beak encounter with a giant squid.
He graduated with a biology degree from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and for six years toiled at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, studying sea worms and sea turtles. He joined the power company almost two decades ago.
"The idea is to minimize the impact of our business on the environment," he says. His projects have ranged from protecting fish, manatees and sea turtles from pipes and hot water, to guarding birds from wires and electricity. The converse is also true: He tries to protect equipment from persistent wildlife.
Into that category falls birds with diarrhea.
The urban problemTry to think of Florida a century ago, back when there were more acres of trees than parking lots and the peninsula was a grand place to be a bird. Now there are 17-million people taking up room in the forests and swamps that used to be wildlife habitat.
Lots of wildlife, include the dusky seaside sparrow and the ivory-billed woodpecker, simply disappeared from Florida. Some, such as the Florida panther and the black bear, remain in only the wildest places.
Perched along the shores of Tampa Bay are more buildings than trees. For an osprey, even the remaining trees appear to be the wrong kind. They're green and healthy. Ospreys happen to be fond of dead trees that provide a good view of the water and passing fish.
In urban Florida, a dead tree that falls on your neighbor's house is considered a liability. Most homeowners prefer the chain saw to a lawsuit.
On paper, it should be bad news for ospreys.
But ospreys are doing fine. They are doing better than fine, especially in Florida. Unlike many delicate bird species, ospreys have managed to adapt to the asphalt jungles and concrete canyons of a modern state.
"They don't want to die out," says Steve Nesbitt, an ornithologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. "They are willing to put up with us. As long as we don't destroy their food supply, they'll remain."
Nobody knows for sure just how many ospreys live in Florida. They're the most common coastal bird-of-prey along the coasts.
"They have done very well. We have so darn many of them they are difficult to count. In some places, the density of their nesting populations in border on colonial," Nesbitt says.
KEYEW! KEYEW! KEYEW!
Anybody talk osprey? In that case, take our word for it. Ospreys are saying, "Thank you, power companies, for putting up those cool poles."
The determined ospreyLast year, Progress Energy Florida reported earnings of $741-million. Lots of smart people work there, including Dave Bruzek. On the other hand, ospreys are pretty darn good at being ospreys.
"Ospreys are very determined," Bruzek says.
Not long ago, an osprey landed on a power company crane near Tarpon Springs carrying a stick. The guy operating the crane scared the osprey off. A few minutes later the osprey returned with another stick. Workers chased it away. Next day it came back with another stick. Eventually it built its nest on another crane.
"Sometimes it saddens me that they have to be so adaptable," Bruzek says. "But it's amazing too. They do whatever it takes to survive."
Power company employees leave active nests alone.
"Instead, if it's possible, we move our sensitive equipment out of the way of the ospreys."
If no young are about, workers relocate the nests to nearby platforms that look something like satellite dishes. About 300 osprey couples now use the fiberglass nests to raise their chicks.
Of course, even more ospreys take advantage of those splendidly tall utility poles.
SNAP! CRACKLE! POP!
KERPOW!
Anybody got a flashlight?
- Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at 727 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com