Ospreys are returning to the lower Chesapeake Bay with sightings made in Gloucester County at John’s Point Landing and at Machicomoco State Park, the Osprey Watch Alliance announced.

The next OWA meeting will be held from 1-3 p.m. on Thursday, March 28, at Gloucester Library, Main Street Center.

Osprey Watch Center for Conservation biologist and speaker Michael Academia said he hopes to complete training for the new phone app in time for the group’s spring osprey nest observations.

Additionally, organizer Tomoko Hamada and Academia are lining up spring boat trips to visit osprey nest sites that are being monitored in the Gwynn’s Island and Mobjack Bay areas.

Of immediate concern is the number of osprey nest failures during recent years in the Chesapeake Bay. With a diet almost strictly of fish, osprey provide important clues to the current state of fish populations in local ecosystem, a release stated. The Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) Osprey Watch program research...