In Wayzata, MnDOT delayed a highway sign replacement as a pair of determined ospreys chose the Highway 12 sign as their nesting site. <\/p>\n
WAYZATA, Minn. \u2014 In real estate, the saying goes: location, location, location. A pair of ospreys nesting above Highway 12 in Wayzata apparently agrees \u2014 and no amount of orange cones was going to change their minds.<\/p>\n
The birds have built a nest on a green road sign structure along Hwy. 12, a spot MnDOT had planned to remove and replace as part of ongoing road construction. The agency worked with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in March to secure a permit. The department said it carefully removed the nest after confirming no eggs or baby birds were present.<\/p>\n
MnDOT ordinarily leaves nesting birds on MnDOT structures unless they pose a safety hazard. In this case, the agency had planned to remove and replace the green road sign on the structure where the ospreys were nesting, which triggered the permitting process with the DNR.<\/p>\n
“We worked with the DNR to take a look at the nest to make sure there were no eggs or baby birds in the nest, and without seeing any, we were able to safely remove the nest to avoid any disruption to the birds,” an MnDOT spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
After removing the nest, MnDOT placed a cone and other barriers on the sign structure to discourage the osprey pair from returning to that nesting area \u2014 ensuring their safety during construction. It didn’t work. The birds came back and resumed building their nest.<\/p>\n
“Given that factor, we decided to ultimately adjust our construction schedule, because the plan was to remove and replace the sign that is on that structure,” said Nathan Bowie, spokesperson for MnDOT.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the birds settled back in and nesting season underway, MnDOT modified its construction schedule to let the ospreys remain. The sign will not be removed until after nesting season ends this fall. At that point, if there are no eggs or baby birds present, the nest will be removed and the sign replaced. In the meantime, the birds will have a bird’s-eye view of construction activity as work continues around them.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, MnDOT says it is working with the DNR and Three Rivers Park District to place a new permanent nesting structure nearby off of Highway 12, in hopes that the ospreys will move into that new home when they return next season. The new structure could reduce future conflicts between nesting birds and road maintenance.<\/p>\n
“We always work to mitigate, reduce, and avoid impacts to wildlife with all of our construction projects,” Bowie said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Wayzata, MnDOT delayed a highway sign replacement as a pair of determined ospreys chose the Highway 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-635419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}