They had to delay the work after thunder and lightning moved through the area Thursday, but a Little Compton man and a group of friends finally got decent weather Friday and managed to attach a new osprey platform atop a 30-foot pole just east of Sakonnet Harbor.

A day later, Scott Brown said the work was already paying off:

“I’m looking at the nest right now and they’re there,” he said Friday. “It didn’t take long.”

Brown, who lives on Maryland Road and has a good view of the nest from his home, decided to build a new platform months ago to replace the aging, dilapidated structure that had sat atop the pole for years. While the old one looked “like one of those archaeologist trays where they sift looking for old bones,” he joked that the new platform will be Little Compton’s equivalent of Trump’s home basis in Florida — “This will be the Mar-A-Lago of love nests for a lucky fish hawk couple,” he said, albeit with no classified documents.

Brown, a trustee for the Nature Conservancy who recently stepped down as president of Friends of Sakonnet Lighthouse, got a good bit of help erecting the new platform from friends. Randy Watt helped clear a path out to the site, and Sakonnet Tree Service came in with a specialized vehicle to lift it atop the pole. Others helped as well, he said.

Now that the platform is up, Brown looks forward to the daily osprey show, which he said is always fascinating.

“It’s such a great spot and its so interesting to watch an osprey fly up,” with a pogy in its talons, and eat its lunch.