The New York Times recently published an article about an Osprey at Jamaica Bay NWR that was equipped with a GPS.

Says The Times:

The transmitter conveys a bird’s exact location, altitude, speed and direction at any moment.

The wildlife refuge at Jamaica Bay in Queens is part of Gateway National Recreation Area, one of the few urban National Park Service properties in the country, and the banding operation was spearheaded by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy, a nonprofit group.

The conservancy, which paid for the transmitter, plans to start a new Web site, Jamaicabayosprey.org, in June to follow the bird’s progress.

Rest of story and link follow.

“People can watch the osprey making forays from the nest to hunting sites, and then take off in September flying south,” said Dave Taft, the park service’s coordinator of the Jamaica Bay unit. “It’s what gets people interested in science somewhere along the line.”

Ospreys — large birds with dramatic brown and white markings and four-foot wing spans — occupy the top of the food chain, eating all kinds of fish, and are thus important indicators of the health of their environment.

Along with other birds of prey, they were decimated by the widespread use of the pesticide DDT in the 1950s and ’60s, which led to a thinning of eggshells. Once DDT was banned in 1972, however, ospreys began a remarkable comeback, especially in the Northeast.

The link is here.