Island naturalist Gus Ben David has helped return 400-pound sea turtles to the ocean and helped return struggling, orphaned great horned owls to the skies. But nature isn’t a Disney movie. And that was never more clear than on Monday.

Rob Bierregaard's first children's book inhabits a world he is both familiar with and passionate about. Belle's Journey: An Osprey Takes Flight tells the story of a real-life young osprey finding her wings and traveling the world.

Spring means osprey nesting and horseshoe crab spawning, and Felix Neck is looking for volunteers to keep an eye on the animals.

With record numbers of nests and chicks successfully fledged, 2016 has been a banner year for osprey on Martha’s Vineyard.

Naturalist Gus Ben David has handled everything from gigantic snakes to enormous birds of prey, but the latest creature under his care is less intimidating and quite a bit more endearing: a baby osprey recently rescued on Chappaquiddick. Mr. Ben David has been feeding and housing the small raptor.

The 2014 inventory found there were 119 active osprey nests on the Island. If I did my math correctly, we had 63 successful nests.