Throughout the month of November, we're exploring animal habitats, from beaver lodges to ponds. Read on to learn more about a unique nest you might find in the Charlotte area.

Bird nests are amazing engineering feats that vary in size, shape and materials.

One bird, the osprey (Pandion haliaetus), builds an incredibly large nest near ponds, lakes and rivers. These nests are a bulky mass of sticks and branches and can be 5 feet wide and 10-12 feet deep. These amazing fish-hunting raptors start out with small nests and add to them every year. Most osprey live to be 10-12 years old, so you can see how these nests can get huge!

Another bird, the great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), is a bird that doesn’t build a nest at all. Instead, it takes over large nests, especially osprey nests. Because the great horned owl is one of our earliest nesting birds (it can begin nesting as early as January), the owls don’t face much opposition when they invade a nest. So if you see an osprey nest, look closely for the “horns” of the great horned owl inside.

Around Charlotte, the best place to see these nests are around Lake Wylie and Lake Norman, but also along the Catawba River. Some of these nests are in trees but, unlike bald eagles, the osprey will also build a nest on man-made structures such as telephone poles, high wire towers, navigational aid lights, cell towers and power poles.

Photo credit: Marvin Bouknight