San Diego port building nests for rare visitors

San Diego port building nests for rare visitors San Diego port officials announced last week a $40,000 project to build five nesting platforms for rare ospreys in San Diego Bay.
   The platforms, which could begin going as early as this week, will consist of 10- to 15-foot poles topped with a 4-foot-square platform.
   Ospreys, once common in the bay, have all but disappeared. A 2004 survey of the region by the Wildlife Research Institute in Ramona found just six breeding pairs.
   Part of the project will also involve long-term monitoring of the platforms and any bird that use them.
   Funds for the osprey project are being pulled from the port's newly established $4 million environmental fund.
   The project is not unique among Southern California ports. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have both developed extensive bird sanctuary and protections programs, including a Long Beach plan dating back to the late-1990s that transplanted dozens of trees to a port-built habitat area to sustain a heron population