Osprey chicks are starving in the Chesapeake Bay, researchers say — and controversial menhaden...

Osprey come to the Chesapeake Bay each spring to feed on fish and nest their young.

The large hawks have become a familiar sight to waterfront homeowners who like to keep track of nests near their property, said Bryan Watts, director of William & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology.

But Watts and his colleagues have increasingly heard from residents worried about the birds’ fate after seeing fewer of them.

The biology center’s new research confirms those concerns. They found that osprey in the lower Chesapeake Bay are failing to successfully reproduce.

It’s the lowest number of osprey chicks that officials have seen since the information started being recorded in the 1970s.

“We suspect that has been going on for at least 15 years or so,” Watts said. “But it does seem to be getting worse in that more and more nests are failing.”

The researchers focused on Mobjack Bay along the Middle Peninsula because it’s been heavily studied over the years, Watts said.

He and his graduate students regularly surveyed the population using mirrors attached to poles that peek into the tall nests. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL