Osprey Days

On a warm and humid morning that promised to get just plain hot as the day wore on, increasing the probability of a thunderstorm, I’d taken a short walk in a wooded area. Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to drive on to a nearby lake that’s home to a pair of bald eagles and often hosts wandering wading birds, waterfowl and gulls. A convenient road borders one side of the lake making observation easy.

September marks the peak of the fall osprey migration through northcentral Pennsylvania as they make their way to winter quarters in Central or South America or perhaps among the islands of the Caribbean. Although none breed here, we frequently see them along the large streams, rivers and lakes and sometimes even at a beaver pond.

I’d driven about three-quarters of the way around the lake when an osprey on the top of a dead tree came into view –

Fortunately there’s a wide pull-off close to the tree that allows the use of a vehicle as a photographic blind.

Photo followed photo until an immature bald eagle swooped at the osprey, flushed it, and both birds disappeared behind large groups of trees. It wasn’t long before the osprey returned to the tree –

There it perched preening, and preening, and preening some more –

When it finally finished preening it took off and headed down the lake –

The next morning H and I returned to the lake with a better camera and a longer lens. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate: the sky was a uniform gray and there was a bit of haze/fog closer to the ground.

We’d driven along the lake, then turned around and headed back the same way when, out in the lake, an osprey dove on a fish. The osprey was followed by an immature bald eagle that broke off the chase before the osprey landed on the same limb of the same tree that held an osprey the day before – was it the same bird? In its talons the osprey had a fish –

Instead of feeding the osprey looked around nervously –

In a few moments the eagle returned, dove at the osprey and the chase was on – the twists and turns, zigs and zags were too rapid for my aging reflexes to follow. After a couple of go-rounds the osprey disappeared behind a grove of trees and the eagle headed across the lake –

The the eagle's plumage revealed that the immature eagle had almost certainly been hatched this year and had only been on its own for a few weeks – no wonder it was in search of an easy meal.