We watched an osprey fishing over Alexander Lake Sunday afternoon.
I once spent a morning in Scotland doing nothing but watching ospreys catch salmon in Loch Fyne. When we lived in Galveston, I’d go to the West End and watch ospreys in the marshes.
Ospreys have a reversible toe that allows them to clamp down with two toes on either side of a fish.
Pandion haliaetus is smaller than an eagle and bigger than a red-tail hawk. If you’re wondering what you’re looking at, the giveaway is the way the osprey holds its wings in flight — a peculiar M shape. (If you were a kid flapping your arms to imitate an osprey, you would have to bend them at the elbows.)
A cool front came through the Piedmont Sunday — the temperature was only 67 at noon — and this bird was flying into a light wind from the northeast. It hovered like a harrier, and I was hoping to see a dive. But then it plodded on. Even superb fishermen don’t always catch fish.
