An Eagle Scout candidate, along with some special help from the Wildlife Commission and PPL, spent the afternoon on Valentine's Day at Owl Creek Reservoir establishing what will hopefully be a love nest for some osprey come springtime.

For his Eagle Scout project, Garrett Demkovitz, 16, member of Troop 209, chose to build and install several platforms for the raptors to construct nests. Mike Beahm at the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Jim Clauser and Jeff Luzenski at PPL helped to pull the operation together."Mike mentioned it to me, and he contacted Jim and Jeff," Demkovitz said. "We went to my house, started naming off some ideas, and we went from there. "We started getting the supplies two months ago. We started building then, and started getting some dates set up before the next nesting season."That nesting season, starting in early spring, is right around the corner. The osprey is a long-distance migrant, spending the autumn and winter in Central and South America and returning to the area around March.The location of the platform, in the field between the two access roads near the lower reservoir in Tamaqua, is the second in a series of four such projects. This coming weekend, Demkovitz and company will be installing another pole at Beltzville.Dan Mummert, wildlife diversity biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Southeast Region, said safe nesting locations for the osprey are desperately needed at the moment."Here in southeastern PA, 100 percent of active osprey nests have been on man-made structures," he said. "Some are on telephone polls, or cell towers. They can be hazardous for the birds, and for people if the towers go down."Osprey prefer to have their nests on the tallest structure in an open area in order to protect against other raptors. Proximity to water is necessary, as live fish is their sole food source. Osprey have a reversible outer toe and barbed pads on their feet specifically for catching fish.All things considered, Demkovitz's platform should serve as the perfect spot for a couple of lovebirds."It's a very positive thing," Mummert said. "It provides them with a safe nest site in an ideal location, and it should allow for more of our local osprey to nest in a suitable location."In the middle of the muddy field, Demkovitz, his scoutmaster Rick Anderson, and several PPL workers secured the platform to the top of a 60 foot pole, provided by PPL. The platform is a large, open box constructed of wood planks.Demkovitz and Anderson rigged some sticks into the platform to craft a sort of starter kit for nesting, and then nailed some sheeting around the pole.That helps prevent raccoons from raiding the nest.The PPL crane carefully pulled the pole up, with workers on the ground fitting the base into a hole.A few subtle adjustments, along with a twist or two, and the platform and pole are secured in the ground."This is what it's all about, working with the community," Joe Nixon, PPL Spokesman, said after the installation. "It's a big effort. It's part of who we are as a company - protecting the environment helping it thrive, it's something that we love to do."Luzenski points out how important it was to establish a connection between the Scouts, PPL, and the Wildlife Commission in order to help the birds, a passion of PPL and its workers since the 1980s."It's a nice thing, to tie the community together with this," he said.Demkovitz, who managed to attend despite being under the weather, is looking forward to the spring, when the platform will hopefully play host to a pair of osprey, helping to preserve the species for future generations of bird-watchers and wildlife enthusiasts."I thought it was a really good idea as an Eagle Scout project, because it's related to birds, too," Demkovitz said. "If an animal needs help, you might as well help it out, not let it suffer and go extinct. You'll never see it again."