I photographed this osprey with a fresh catch of crappie on a gorgeous day at Falls of the Ohio State Park. I spent the morning walking on the 380 million year old Denovian period limestone, which is riddled with fossils of ancient sea creatures. This location is a birding hotspot, attracting frequent rarities such as the herring gulls and lesser black-backed gull that led me there on this day, along with hundreds of herons and egrets. The “falls” today are covered by the McAlpine Locks and Dam, and even before the first locks were built in 1830 they would have been better described as a rapids. Nonetheless, with almost thirty feet of drop over a two-mile stretch, they would have been a daunting obstacle to river travelers, and the cities of Louisville, Jeffersonville, Clarksville, and New Albany owe their existence to this stretch of river as boats were forced to stop here and seek assistance.
The osprey’s unique hunting behavior earned it not only its own genus, Pandion, but an entire family unto itself: Pandionidae. In Greek mythology there were two kings named Pandion, and both experienced supernatural incidents involving birds, though none of them were osprey. Pandion I’s daughters, Philomela and Procne were transformed into a nightingale and a swallow respectively. Pandion II had similar misfortune when the gods transformed his son, Nisus, into a hawk. It is Nisus who was most likely on French zoologist Marie Jules César de Savigny’s mind when he described Pandion in 1809.
The osprey shares its species name, haliaetus, which means “sea eagle,” with Haliaeetus leucocephalus, better know as the bald eagle. While bald eagles eat a lot of fish, in truth they are opportunistic and will eat most anything they can catch (or steal). Osprey, on the other hand, eat almost exclusively fish. They are specially adapted to this task, with vision that allows them to see fish underwater from the air. They often hover briefly, as this one did, and then plunge feet first, grasping the fish with long, curved talons on toes arranged two forward and two back, but unique in that one toe can rotate forward to get a better grip if needed. Osprey always carry fish in line with their bodies and head first. They will frequently take surprisingly large fish - I observed another bird with a carp that was almost (but not quite) too much to handle. After a few midair stalls to adjust to the fish’s squirming, it gained airspeed and lift and was off to enjoy lunch.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please share it with the people you care about, follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and (best of all) consider subscribing via email using the form above.