The Eating Habits of Ospreys

On the way to the bus stop, the Kindergartener was telling me about birds of prey.  Specifically, ospreys.  How they dive down and snatch fish right out of the water, and did I know that?  I said that I did.  (That may have been a lie.)  They eat other things, too, he told me, like dead birds.  Oh, I said.  And sometimes live birds.  Like ducklings.  My instinct was to make sympathetic noises on the ducklings’ behalf.  Who doesn’t love ducklings?  The Kindergartener tried to soften the blow: Well, not a lot of ducklings—just one duckling per day.

Comments

[Karen]

Yum, duckling. I just had that for dinner, with a bitter orange sauce.

[Erin]

We lived in a marina out west, briefly. The Great Blue Herons who also lived there would perch on the edge of the dock like Michael Phelps right before the race (I am not kidding), then dive into the water and come up with fish. It was incredible! And out there, the Blue Herons really are blue, unlike the washed out grey ones we have here in the east. Yay, nature!

[NurseJen]

Good to hear ospreys are eating responsibly.

[Ed Harrison]

I too am on a strict one-duckling-per-day diet.

[Sis]

Yeah... and it's the ugly one... so the ospreys are doing us all a favor.

[Tammy]

Sis: Gotta keep that swan population down.

Ed: Who would win an Ed Harrison v. Osprey showdown? That's what I'd like to know.

NurseJen: They're trying. They carry their Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Guide with them at all times.

Erin: Very cool. Yes, I've only seen the whitish gray ones around here. I totally thought they were pelicans flying by until Husband shook his head and corrected me. No. Not pelicans.

Karen: Yum. You lucky duck.

[WTT]

A friend--an expert on birds of prey (don't ask)--assures me that ospreys primarily eat fresh fish, and only rarely turn to other birds, small mammals and reptiles, and the like, for food sources. Neither, for the proud osprey, is the deceased and decaying fish (nor, as I was testily informed, are either frozen fish fillets and/or fish sticks). Ducklings--unless they're plump and slow-moving, like upturned, meaty little canapes on toothpicks--are generally off the ospreys' menus.

[Robert]

I love the one-duckling-per-day limit. My Eight-Year-Old struggles daily to balance his innate kindheartedness with his little boy's fascination with death and destruction. A few years ago, upon learning that the beef we eat actually comes from cows, thought about it for a few seconds before saying, "but they only kill the mean cows, right?"

Yes, son, only the mean ones.

[Pete]

I'm sure that "Ed" has all his ducks in line too.