Ozzy The Osprey Love Doll

I just finished reading the greatest discussion thread over in the Groundspeak Forums. It reads like a great novel, or at least a well written soap opera. On 6/25/2006 a geocacher from Connecticut named Planet spotted something on a web cam. The web cam is on an osprey nest and and is put on by the Connecticut Audubon Society.

The Ospreys had laid some eggs and brought something for the baby to enjoy. A little blue teddy bear. This bear appeared to have a travel bug dog tag around its neck. A possible match was quickly identified as missing travel bug, "Sophia Loren". This was soon ruled out due to other forum reader's "scientific" examination of the web cam footage. The toy bear was being called Sophia, blue plush, blue bear and more. Finally on 8/14/06 ZSandman suggested the name, "Ozzy the Osprey Love Doll" Everyone agreed that it was not a travel bug, but if that bear came out of the nest it needed to be made into one.

Ozzy was moved around the nest and was played with by the birds all summer. The cachers following the thread were watching the baby bird, "Junior" grow up right in front of them. Ozzy inspired love songs to be written, funny photoshop postings and cartoons drawn in the forum. Terms such as "those with blocked web cams" and "The Australians who get to work when the web cam is dark." Finally, in the beginning of September of 2006 Hurricane Fernando blew Ozzie out of the nest.

A rescue party had long been in the planning for when Ozzy left the nest. Planet got some folks together with kayaks and headed to the nest. Sadly, Ozzy was not recovered and wasn't able to fulfill his destiny as a travel bug. In memory, Planet was given an angel teddy bear which was named Spirit of Ozzy.

Spirit of Ozzy the Osprey Love Doll is now a travel bug owned by Planet. There are currently 30 geocachers watching the travel bug with hopes it gets close to them.

In the summer of 2007 the ospreys were back and the discussion thread was revived. Everyone felt like happy parents when two baby ospreys hatched. No teddy bear to look at but there was still plenty of excitement. The fire department came to the nest twice to rescue the babies from trash.

Now the Osprey are back and this year four eggs have hatched. That's a lot of fish to catch and feed to the hungry babies. You can see the web cam at the Connecticut Audubon Society Website. For some reason the live video will not stream in FireFox so dust off that Internet Explorer. You can also join the discussion forum here.

You have to go read through the thread yourself. There are so many funny comments and great posts. You'll feel like you know "Ozzie" and might even put a watch on the travel bug listing!