A Surprise Visitor Just Flew In

I’m not very good at bird-watching but this one was hard to miss. An osprey flying over the pond swooped down and caught a fish and then took his dinner to the table (a large flat tree stump nearby). We called his make-do restaurant Sushi on the Stump. We assume the bird was a male because they tend to arrive north a little earlier than females.

 He took his time eating his catch of the day. We were almost surprised that he could get off the ground after such a big meal. To paraphrase a line from Egar Allen Poe, “the osprey with wings beating, still is eating, still is eating …”  Only it wasn’t midnight and this bird didn’t croak “Nevermore”. It was more like “I’ll have some more.”

According to the Mass Audubon Society, ospreys have a wingspan of over five feet and hold their wings in a distinctive M pattern when flying. They have   exceptionally sharp eyesight, allowing them to spot fish from much greater distances than humans. They can see up to three to five times the distance that humans can see and so can easily see fish in the water below.

We have not seen any osprey nests in Rehoboth but haven’t looked very hard. Mass Audubon says that “osprey nests, often referred to as eyries, are marvels of avian engineering … Their large size, sometimes reaching up to 6 feet in diameter, makes them highly visible along coastlines and near bodies of water.” They also give the ospreys an excellent view of the water below. Some nests are used for generations of ospreys.

The nests are usually found along the shore but obviously ospreys enjoy fresh water fish as well. These large raptors have sometimes been called fish hawks. Ospreys often return to the same nest each year. We have enjoyed watching the ospreys in their bayside nests at the RI Audubon Society’s property in Bristol but had never seen one right in our own backyard.

 These “snowbirds” come back to this area in late April and head south at the end of summer. The parent birds spend the summer raising their chicks high up in the nest. The chicks can fly after a couple of months. Ospreys have a usual life span of 7 to 10 years, not bad by the standards of wild birds, but they can live longer.

 By the end of summer, the parents take off south again and the chicks must make their own way south by instinct. It’s a little disturbing to hear the now-grown young ospreys still squawking for attention after their parents have already flown the nest, but this is taking a human approach to something the ospreys have been doing forever. Presumably the chicks figure it out and soon make their way south too. When I think of all the things animals can do that humans can’t I   wonder why we call them dumb animals.

Meanwhile, the osprey in our yard ripped up and gulped his fish seemingly oblivious to all the other birds around him. A picturesque sequence of cardinals, blue jays, goldfinch, red-winged blackbirds and flickers continued to visit the bird feeder while squirrels ran around below. I recently saw an Eastern towhee for the first time, a pretty tri-color bird. It’s nice to see bluebirds perched in our trees but the squirrels keep raiding the mealworm supply. It’s also nice to see this wide variety of birds just out the window.

All the avian busy-ness in the yard was set against a backdrop of yellow daffodils and forsythia, trees with new leaves (finally!) and a lovely sunset slanting over new green grass. What an improvement spring is over winter, although soon the poison ivy and mosquitoes will make it less than idyllic. Ticks seem to be year-round anymore, so be on guard for them.

About the time the osprey appeared, I saw the first hummingbird of the season, a sure sign of spring. These tiny birds look so delicate, yet they’ve just flown up from somewhere as far away as Mexico. Plus, if you’ve ever witnessed two male hummingbirds fighting over a feeder, you’ll know that they can be just as aggressive over territory as any animal. Raptors or songbirds, big or little, all our bird visitors are part of Nature’s grand plan and all are welcome around here.