Wild Life / August is for osprey
fish in the sky
Hello, friends — It’s August 1, if you can believe it. Say “rabbit, rabbit” and get the good luck. I’ve learned to love August, when summer days wear thin. The early morning is suddenly dark again. The flowers have bloomed with only the late rudbeckia and hydrangea showing new shades. I used to feel sad about it, but now I notice some gentle softness I want to protect, the beauty of a slow fade. There’s still a beach day ahead, an ice cream, a hot sun. The cicadas sing. Everything is fragile and fleeting, and never more so than in August. — Amy Jean
Ospreys are a summer visitor to Connecticut. They come here to lay eggs and raise babies. They surprise me sitting on branches over water, looking like enormous oreo cookies. The deep contrast from their white bellies to the back of their dark wings creates the illusion of there/not-there. Ospreys are birds of prey who fish, which feels more sporting than most. Their skill is incredible and I’ve watched them soar above small ponds and dive, feet first, into dark water. They are the only hawk in North America that eats almost entirely live fish.
It seems unfathomable to me that creatures of the air would interact with creatures under water, skipping over the unbearable in-between of land. Osprey have fantastic eyesight and are lightning fast. Their talons are specially curved, and they can rotate the outer toe backward, making an “x,” to grip fish tight and hold on. If they can’t get the fish out of the water quickly, they risk being dragged down into the deep (dramatic video links below).
Once in the air, ospreys carry their fish quarry head-first for aerodynamics. It looks impossibly absurd in photographs, as if the bird is showing a fish friend how to fly.
I keep imagining what it must be like to be this fish, all sleek and smooth, swimming near the surface, feeling warm sunlight through the water, minding its own business, and then seconds later whisked up above the trees by a feathered monstrosity. The fish does not even know about the sky, not really, the infinite expanse beyond its realm. In this moment, it gasps, mid-air, and dies.
In August, look up to the sky for this spirit fish, flying-swimming forever, never touching land. By Labor Day, the ospreys will begin their travels south for winter.
Osprey links—
This *very dramatic* slo-mo video of an osprey catching a fish in the Scottish highlands is mesmerizing and mind-boggling [via YouTube]
I also like this one from BBC Earth, in which, near the end, there is a slow-motion segment of an osprey in mid-flight shaking water from its back like a dog [via YouTube]
Spirit fish photograph [All About Birds]
Animal encounters in recent comments—
Grace’s story of snapping turtles bobbing for apples in Algonquin Park is picture-book perfect, and kind of wistful and heartache-y, too. Thank you to everyone for your snapping turtle stories! As always, please send in your animal encounters (by email or on the website). Has everyone seen about a million bunnies this summer?
Also—
My summer osprey drawing is for sale. Some of the proceeds will go to Hawk Watch International.
Wild Life #53 / this monthly newsletter is a place to learn about the life around us, one August osprey at a time. I do this because I’m not sure what to do about the millions of species in danger of extinction. It means something to see and enjoy the life around us. Thanks for being there and sharing with family and friends.