Maybe it’s because of what happened in 2019, but I felt an unexpected gravity in 2020’s annual osprey-watching vigil as it unfolded sixty feet above my friend Kent Roorda’s place.
Since spring 2016, the same mating pair of ospreys has been returning to the sturdy nesting platform he built at the top of the lodgepole pine at the corner of his house in Grand Lake, Colorado. By now I know the birds by sight: The male has a solid white chest and a peace-sign feather pattern on the back of his head and the female has speckled chest feathers and a brownish mohawk.
I recognize them because, unbeknownst to the birds, Kent rigged the nest with a camera, ran an ethernet cable up the tree, and contracted with a server company in the Czech Republic to livestream their every move. Watching from my computer, it’s like being in the nest with them as they court, mate, decorate, dismember and devour trout, lay eggs, incubate and
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