EUGENE, Ore. — The osprey has landed at the University of Oregon School of Law — and onto the web.
A webcam perched above a nest atop the Knight Law Center on Agate Street offers a live look at osprey activity. A pair of osprey, a male and female, have been taking turns sitting on two eggs since mid-April. The eggs likely will hatch in mid- to late May, said Laura McGinnis, UO School of Law spokeswoman.
“We are kind of excited here because it is likely to coincide with commencement,” she said.
Law school grads will don their caps on May 19 this year. The osprey cam might just help the school add more students to the flock of Oregon Ducks; McGinnis said the webcam has more traffic than any other part of the law school’s website.
The webcam garnered more than 5,000 unique page views from the end of March to the end of April, said Jim Horstrup, building manager at the law center.
The osprey nest rests on a 52-foot-galvanized steel lamp post retrofitted to be a platform, he said. Private donors paid $15,000 to buy and install the camera, which cost $2,600 alone, he said.
While the osprey nest has become a fixture, it wasn’t where the osprey couple first chose to make a home. The birds used to nest on a light tower at Hayward Field across Agate Street from the law school.
Campus legend has it that one of the osprey dropped a trout on lane four of the historic track while runners were on it. So, Horstrup said the UO had the nest moved to its current spot in March 2014. He added that the birds took to the new nest two weeks after installation.
