ATC, City of Stoughton, Stoughton Utilities and Hooper Corp. replace local osprey nest
When an ATC employee read a story in the Stoughton Courier Hub about a light pole with an osprey nest being removed from a baseball diamond at Stoughton High School, he kicked off a concerted team effort to provide the birds with a new place to raise their young.
ATC contacted the city of Stoughton and Stoughton Utilities about donating a utility pole and nesting platform. ATC’s environmental department, together with local avian expert and Stoughton resident Patrick Ready, identified a suitable location for a new osprey nest. Before approving the location, the City solicited feedback from adjacent residents.
ATC’s construction partner M.J. Electric delivered the to the location and ATC delivered the three-by-three-foot nesting platform to Stoughton Utilities, which had agreed to install the pole with the assistance of its construction partner Hooper Corp.
Stoughton Utilities and Hooper installed the new nesting platform and pole in a public green space adjacent to Paradise Pond and south of Nottingham Road roughly a half-mile west of Stoughton High School.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, about 87 percent of Wisconsin’s breeding osprey population nest on platforms. Osprey generally return to Wisconsin in late March/early April to raise their young.
ATC maintains more than 200 nesting platforms on or adjacent to its transmission structures to enable eagles, herons, osprey and other birds to nest safely. Most of ATC’s nesting platforms support breeding osprey pairs.
In 2020, ATC installed three osprey nesting platforms near Portage, Wis., and donated two nesting platforms to the city of Manitowoc and six to the Waupaca Biological Field Station to support their osprey conservation efforts.
