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Ospreys, Eagles share airspace at Langley

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Rachel Sherburne
  • 1st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFPN) --  Tom Olexa does not wear “blues” or a battle dress uniform. But in his blue jeans and brown worker’s boots the wildlife biologist has a key job at this busy F-15 Eagle fighter base.

His job is to protect and ensure the safety of everything that flies here – pilots, planes and Chesapeake Bay ospreys that claim the same airspace over Hampton Roads, Va.

Mr. Olexa spends a big part of his day on a boat at this base located on the shore of the Back River just off Chesapeake Bay, keeping an eye on the varied wildlife that inhabits the area. That has been a way of life for the past five years for this U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist who works at the 1st Fighter Wing’s safety office. It suits his nature.

“This is a dream job,” Mr. Olexa said. “I get to do things you see in ‘National Geographic’ and on the ‘Crocodile Hunter.’”

But the dream job is also essential to base flight operations, especially when it involves the osprey, a fish-eating eagle about 2 feet tall with a 6-foot wingspan. An encounter between an osprey and an F-15 Eagle is not pleasant. In 2000, an osprey collided with an F-15 and caused more than $800,000 in damages.

The biologist’s job is now more significant as a result of a Chesapeake Bay osprey population that has been steadily growing. The College of William and Mary reported 500 breeding pairs in 1972. Today it reports more than 3,600 breeding pairs in the bay area -- an impressive recovery for a species once threatened by DDT.

The birth boom has spread to here, with 24 breeding pairs increasing the hazards to Airmen and airplanes. So in 2001 the safety office launched Phase 1 of the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard Osprey Project, to relocate nestlings. Since then, the Agriculture Department has relocated 72 ospreys, 5 to 7 weeks old, to Ohio and Indiana, which have few of the birds of prey.

Ospreys start flying at about eight weeks and they remember their nesting sites. The young birds leave to spend the winter in South America and don’t return home to within 10 miles of their nest about two years later. Once home they find a lifetime mate, ospreys build a nest to which they return for the rest of their lives, which is about 13 to 17 years.

Langley is not trying to get rid of the majestic birds. On the contrary.

“Our intention is for everyone to coexist in a safe environment,” Mr. Olexa said. Another goal, he said, is to learn and understand more about ospreys so the base can “share its findings with other bases and civilian airfields and be able to recommend plans to monitor and manage other nesting osprey.”

Banding the base ospreys is Phase 2 of the osprey project. The office began banding the birds last year with a $5,500 research grant from the Berryman Institute East at Mississippi State University. Mr. Olexa and his team banded 16 birds, or about 55 percent of the “Langley” nesting population.

Because of the harsh spring weather, the banding progress has been a bit slower this year. The team has only banded 10 birds this year, five of them new arrivals.

“Bird banding data are useful in both research and management projects,” Mr. Olexa said. “By identifying individual birds we are able to study the dispersal, migration, behavior, social structure, lifespan and survival rate, reproductive success and population growth.”

Banding has led Mr. Olexa and his team to discover the reproductive rate for the area is currently at about 1.75, higher than the 1.0 to 1.5 reproductive rate needed to sustain a population.

“The fishing is good here, I guess,” Mr. Olexa said. He attributes the abundance of fish in the costal waters to the attraction and reproductive success of ospreys near the base.

But with more birds, the chance for bird strikes also increases. That is why the research is important in helping reduce the risk of bird-inflicted damage on base aircraft.

The base safety team is sharing what it is learning with the wildlife and aviation community.

Making the program work takes a collaborative effort among several on- and off-base agencies. They included the Coast Guard, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland fisheries, the Langley entomology section, aero club and marina and the Air Combat Command environmental planning section.

“Hopefully other researchers and biologists can use our data for aircraft safety and osprey conservation,” Mr. Olexa said.