Ospreys and Eagles, Oh My!

I'm still celebrating my father on April 10, 2017. You can get a lotta blogposts out of one good day in the field! I started the day at Zaleski State Forest which is situated, oddly enough, in Zaleski, Ohio. And then I moved on to the bike trail that runs from Athens to Nelsonville, Ohio, with beautiful wetlands on its north side.

As I walked along the bike trail near Chauncey, Ohio, I heard the chicklike cheeping of an angry osprey, and darted over to a clearing in time to see the fish hawk routing a bald eagle from what must have been the osprey's nesting area. Not so long ago, I would never have seen such a thing in this part of Ohio. Both osprey and eagle have been gone for so very long, and are now, with the recession of persistent hydrocarbon pesticides such as DDT, repopulating their former range.  The ospreys have had some help from the ODNR, which began releasing (hacking) osprey young into the wild at suitable sites in 1996. In fact, I did the paintings that were used on educational signs at hack sites! Here's one of them. 

This painting has had a lot of exposure, besides being used at fledgling hack sites in Ohio. It appeared on the cover of the Journal of Raptor Research not long ago, where it was pointed out to me after it was printed that I'd accidentally put 13 tail feathers on the bird. Oopsie!  You know there are supposed to be 12, but mistakes happen. And I am a feather counter, too. This may be a first.

When the Department of Defense expressed interest in having me paint an osprey with jet fighters in the background, I painted some jet fighters in. Heh. I'm easy. In the digital world, you can always scrub 'em back out. All in a day's work for an illustrator.

But I digress. By 2011, ospreys were detected in 213 blocks during the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas research. 92 nests had been found. The presence of both osprey and bald eagle in mid-April virtually ensures that they are both breeding somewhere near. And that is a beautiful thing. Here's an active bald eagle nest I can see any time I go to Parkersburg WV. 

If you click on the photo you can see the female on the nest. Awesome!

The osprey along the Athens-Nelsonville bike trail gave that eagle all kinds of hell, driving it from the territory. Eagles for their part return the favor,  routinely pirating the osprey's catch in an act called kleptoparasitism, and even eating about-to-fledge osprey young. Ugh. We are only just seeing what a world with lots of bald eagles looks like, and how it all works. Having ugh'ed, I must say that seeing a bald eagle nest when I come off I-270 on my way back from John Glenn International Airport in Columbus is quite a thrill and welcome home! If I don't remember to look for the nest, there's usually an adult eagle soaring low over the highway cloverleaf. My, my, my how things have changed in the last decade. And it's vastly for the better, where bald eagles are concerned. ODNR surveys estimate 207 bald eagle nests in the state as of March 2016. Eagle populations appear to have stabilized. Bald eagle chick production in 2016 was estimated at 327. That's a lot of eagles!

I still find it amazing that there may be more bald eagles in Ohio than ospreys. Perhaps it's a reflection of the eagle's "moral flexibility" in its search for food. Dumps, carcasses, catching everything from rabbits to fish, it's all fair game to the bald eagle...by contrast, the piscivorous osprey is a specialist.

Look out, ospreys. Stay en garde.

I saw the first bluebells on the river side of the trail, and knew it was but a taste of things to come. Bluebells like to congregate in masses. This perennial plant is such a miracle, unfurling big glaucous-green leaves and tall stalks in a matter of a few days. I think about what kind of root it must have there below the rich silty soil, to put on such a show in such a short time. 

Mertensia virginica, goin' for it.

I walked past a couple of cabins and into a fanfare of spectral blue. Running down the hill were smoky mists of blue-eyed Mary Collinsia verna, one of my favorites for its delicacy and two-toned petals. The overall effect is of a bluish white haze; the purity of its color must be appreciated at close range. You can just see the bluebells farther up the hill, especially if you click on the photo.

I found one sport that was rose-magenta, a red-eyed Mary, with the audacity to be a few inches taller than its companions as well. It reminded me of a sport of my own, a willowy prize, a few inches taller than most. By comparison to her hobbitish mother, she is a fine mutant indeed. This photo was taken in spring 2016. We'll have to get some more soon.

Coming up next: Wallering in Bluebells

Pink Flamingos, Happy Boy

The first thing Liam and I did upon arriving at Merritt Island NWR near Titusville, FL, was to stop right on the road for a bald eagle who was hangin' out on a power pole. I have been there a bunch of times and I'd never seen that. Now, maybe I'm supposed to be blase about an enormous sea eagle 30' over my head. But I'm not. A truck honked at us and swerved, gunning its engine, and it was then I realized it was probably stupid of me to stop on the main road. But still. I was overwhelmed. And as it turned out, we never saw another eagle perched so close. I was glad we'd taken the time to ogle it. Liam took this photo! (I kept handing him my camera, as all the best wildlife was out the passenger side of the car. Wink, wink.)

Great big and itty bitty Florida cooters near the Merritt Island Visitor Center. I want to name a dog Cooter.

Another Liam shot of a majestic high-headed gator. Ahh. Such a grand reptile.

I love packing my long lens around. I can take candid shots of my primate companions. Liam saw some oranges hanging high overhead and wanted one sooo badly.

He scrounged a palm frond petiole and took to leaping and poking.

I so wanted him to score an orange to eat, but they were on there pretty good, wouldn't come down for him. I call my kids The Toucans. It is very difficult to keep them in fruit. I buy apples and kiwis and clementines by the bushel.

We climbed back in the car and drove slowly around Black Point Wildlife Drive. The light was hard and harsh, but we had fun fun fun.

I always forget that roseate spoonbills have head skin the color of used chewing gum. Freaky greenish-blue. That's a winter American avocet exiting, stage left.

We were in Florida for a week and saw oodles of spoonbills, but I never once got used to seeing a large flaming pink bird. I'm glad of that. May I never get used to spoonbills. 

I had a good (silent, inner) chuckle when a woman I was standing near on a viewing platform asked me if I'd seen the flamingo go over. 

"I saw a roseate spoonbill go over just a bit ago, but no flamingo."

"This was a flamingo."

I chewed that over for awhile and decided the fate of the world didn't ride on whether she'd seen a flamingo or not. Flamingos may sometimes be found very sparingly in the Florida Keys. A day's drive south of Titusville.

I replied simply, "Cool!" and ambled off. About twenty minutes later I was peering intently into a shrub at a common yellowthroat. The same woman came up behind me. "What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Common yellowthroat, male, right at the water's edge."

"Really? Now who'd ever think to stop and look at something like that?" she exclaimed.

That took me by surprise. Huh?? I actually laughed out loud. What a bizarre thing to say!

I turned around and smiled at her, meeting her eyes.

"That pink bird you saw fly over? Roseate spoonbill. Flamingos are found only in the Keys, and they're super rare."

"Oh! OK."

Never can pass up a teaching moment, and she'd given me permission to correct her (kindly) by asking me what I was looking at, and making a comment that told me she didn't yet know a hawk from a handsaw. Seemed like the right thing to do, to tell her she'd seen a spoonbill, so she wouldn't go around calling them flamingos to everybody she ran into. Kind of like wiping a daub of ketchup off somebody's lapel.

Or shoulder...I never tire of trying to get a peek or a picture of a spoonbill's saffron tail. Not to mention the used-bubblegum head.

Binocular vision in a young tricolored heron. I like his tighty whities.

Really, what a lovely bird, all painted with rufous. Saw so many of them and never tired of the "Lady of the Lake," either. Pure elegance on the wing or on foot. I do miss the name "Lousiana heron."

When I was a teen, I was pretty sure I'd never get to see a wood stork in my lifetime. They were almost extinct then. I felt the same about brown pelicans and bald eagles. Imagine. I'm that old. But I'm not that old. They've recovered that quickly! There is so much to celebrate in conservation today. Forget the gloom. There are bald eagles on the power poles, and wood storks walking around on lawns and roadside ditches. And that, to me, is a miracle.

 Liam liked this wood stork. He narrated its preening. I love birding with Liam.

A raft of northern pintails, hauled out. They have the right idea. Breed in the prairie potholes, winter along the Florida coast. I could dig that seasonal regime, if I had somebody to fly with.

Another Liam Thompson shot, of shovelers! Watch out world, he's got a telephoto!

He's not bad with an iPhone camera, either. Selfie by the pool... taken for his sister who was freezing her patootie off in a Maine snowstorm at that moment. He said it was so bright he couldn't see the palm tree until he got back in the room. Classic shot!

Yes, it's always worth yanking the kid out of school for a week in January. Never more emphatically so than this January. He told me today (Feb. 2) that he's finally caught up with schoolwork and back in the groove. And that the Florida vacation was worth every minute of grief since he got back.
Atta boy! Way to live.

A Bald Eagle's Lunch

Wildlife viewing opportunities along the Missouri can be spectacular. There are eagles, bald and golden, prairie falcons, mule deer, mergansers, nighthawks, coyotes, soft-shelled turtles, beaver, muskrat...we saw them all.

A pretty Brewer's blackbird poses for its portrait.

Here's a pair of golden eagles on a distant but most picturesque promontory. Oh how I wanted to get closer.

With Phoebe steering, we drew near a bald eagle who was having a fish dinner on a log.

It's a subadult bird, with a "dirty" head, not quite in full adult plumage. It could be anywhere from two to four years old.

Note that it's got the fish in its bill on takeoff.

I am loving this, trying hard to keep my camera steady as I fire shot after shot. Should have had it on motordrive, but ah well.

And then he did it--transferred the fish from bill to talons, in flight! Woweee!


As this publishes, they'll be finishing up the Big Sit in our tower at home. I'll be over in the Dayton area, having booked a presentation for the Bruckner Nature Center on the day of the Big Sit. D'oh! Never thought the Sit would fall on October 11! That's what happens when you book a year in advance...things slip your mind. But I'll have been there from dawn to noon, when I have to take off. And I'll have packed in as much fun as I could. Hope you've had a fun weekend, too, wherever you're Sitting.