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Get an up-close view of osprey behavior by visiting several Osprey nest platforms aboard the Ellen B as you cruise along a sheltered waterway on the scenic upper Choptank River. The expedition will begin at River City Cruise Co. headquarters in Denton, MD, where you will be introduced to your guides—including ornithologist Dr. Paul Spitzer—for an orientation session before making your way onto the boat for a two-hour journey. Dr. Spitzer will be our wildlife interpreter as we observe the birds’ behavior at the end of their nesting season here in the Chesapeake Bay region before they begin their southern fall migration.
Dr. Spitzer has a lifelong love affair with the East Coast of North America. His scientific studies began with failing ospreys in 1968, when they were severely impacted by DDT in some areas. He was then a protégé of bird-people Roger and Barbara Peterson, and a biology student at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University. DDT’s destruction of bird life, reported by Rachel Carson in “Silent Spring,” demanded more evidence and proofs, so Paul devoted the 1970s to detailed osprey biology studies for his doctorate at Cornell University. He happily documented initial northeastern osprey recovery, from New Jersey to Massachusetts, as DDT passed out of ecosystems. His thesis predicted ospreys’ subsequent success in many parts of the world. He says, “Those years of osprey work were the making of me as a scientist and a humanist.”
In the 1980s, between international conservation projects in India, Central America, and New Zealand, Dr. Spitzer gradually made the Choptank River his home for life.
