Watched an Osprey take a Pidgin out of the air

Leaving work, I am walking towards the parking garage when a pidgin flies in front of my face so closely that I can hear the feather and feel the wind from it's rapidly beating wings. I probably could have counted the feathers too, he was that close.

A split second later it was followed by an Osprey that almost took my nose off.. I think one of his wings actually touched me.. can't be sure as I was wearing a heavy winter jacket. The Osprey hits the rapidly fleeing pidgin on the fly and they slide across the pavement and into the kerb with an explosion of feathers. For a moment the mighty hunter stands on his prey while I am busy trying to get the camera on my phone working.

I get the camera up and am focusing (and walking towards slightly) the pair when the Brinks truck that just picked up a ton of cash and coins from the Borgata stops between me and them. The driver noticed the Osprey and wanted to point it out to the co-driver. The Pidgin took that moment to escape. (though I doubt it lived long).

I really wish I could have gotten that shot.. and I am still a bit peeved that the Driver of the Brink's truck just had to stop between me and them (he had to have seen me with my phone) and it was a shame the Osprey lost his lunch.. but it was still a very cool thing to have witnessed

We get a lot of ospreys around here, but they'll rarely take anything but fish. I was heading to a dentist appointment on beachside a couple weeks ago and one flew right in font of my car with a massive fish that any angler would have been proud of. It was so big the osprey was visibly struggling to maintain altitude, but I swear he had a smile on his beak.

The wife and I actually saved one about a year ago. It was a fledged juvenile that likely got separated from his parents during some local forest fires. Old enough to fly, but not quite old enough to hunt for himself. He was just sort of standing next to the road, probably too weak to fly from lack of food. Even though he was still young, those talons were quite imposing, and we really weren't sure what to do. If you've ever seen an osprey up close, they have one of the most aggressive talon size to body size ratios of any bird you're likely to come across.

After a couple unsuccessful calls to local wildlife authorities, we got desperate and called our avian vet. Even though it was after hours, our regular vet called us right back. She's done lots of raptor work in addition to parrots, and she kind of chuckled at our trepidation to approach this box cutter with wings.

"Take his eyesight away and he'll be easier to handle than your cockatoos." she says. "Just throw a towel over his head and he'll let you do whatever you want."

Darned if she wasn't right. Towel goes over the head, and he let us pick him up, just like a big feathery football. We wrapped him up so we wouldn't get poked, and dropped him off in the night depository of a local wildlife rehab. They have a bunch of large cages accessible 24/7 for injured wildlife. We kept track of him over the next few weeks, and it turns out he learned to eat on his own and eventually got released. Hell, maybe that was him with the fish.

Yeah, JG, those are some big berking talons.

Most of the ones I've seen are more gray and have MARINES painted on the side.

One time I was standing out in my front yard chatting with my neighbor, and a hawk swooped down and got a pigeon that was standing about ten feet away from us. It was pretty impressive - it was as though the pigeon just vanished, one second he was there and the next there was nothing but a few feathers.

My dad nabbed a bald eagle once that he found way way way back in the woods almost dead with a foreign object lodged in it's throat. It was m e a n mean. If you want to get the wildlife people in your state to show up fast, call them and tell them you have an eagle in a bag. The fact that he's a veterinarian is the only thing that kept him from getting in serious trouble. He still got a stern talking to.

Did he get it out?

He carried the eagle out of the woods in a sack and called the wildlife people so they could sort it out. He called them later to see how it went and they wouldn't tell him. Apparently if you let people feel good about saving animals then they tend to 'find' more in the future.

My kids take their pet chickens on walks around the cranberry bogs behind my house. Really serves to torment the local osprey. He/she circles but as of yet hasn't descended down to try and take one of the chickens. The chickens have harnesses and leashes made for cats, so they don't stray more than a few feet.

I was riding my mountain bike down a big hill through the woods and a huge owl flew right across my path and landed alongside. With a flurry of feathers, he got back up in the air, taking a fat squirrel for his first and last ride.

tr8todd wrote: My kids take their pet chickens on walks around the cranberry bogs behind my house. Really serves to torment the local osprey. He/she circles but as of yet hasn't descended down to try and take one of the chickens. The chickens have harnesses and leashes made for cats, so they don't stray more than a few feet.

Wait. They walk the chicken? Like, on a leash?

Why have I not seen this in Portland or Eugene?

I took this picture in my front yard about a year ago. I saw the hawk swoop down on the squirrel out the window so I snuck out on the front porch to take pictures. That is my driveway in the background. Not an unusual sight even though I live on the main street in the city.

Appleseed wrote: Most of the ones I've seen are more gray and have MARINES painted on the side.

i think you'd notice if one of these brushed your jacket in flight:

Last year I was fishing at the local reservoir and a great blue heron landed about 20 feet to my left and just stood there for maybe 10 minutes. I got a good bite, and when I started to reel in the fish, the heron took off. I got the fish in the net, and he was a pretty small rainbow, so I released him - and when the fish had moved off about ten feet, the heron swooped down and scooped him on the fly, about 10 feet from where I was standing. Really made my day! What a sight.

Years ago, we were holding short of the runway at RDU, and a dove flew by, level with the cockpit. A falcon that liked to hunt near the end of the runway hit the dove after a near vertical dive, maybe ten feet from us. The dove looked like it exploded, with all of the feathers that were flying. The falcon went on past the dove, pulled out of his dive in the distance from the cockpit to the ground (maybe 10-12 feet), looped back around to snag the dove in flight, and carried it off. I always wondered how many Gs the falcon was pulling to pull out of his dive. I read somewhere they can hit 200 mph and withstand 18 Gs.

Jim Pettengill wrote: Last year I was fishing at the local reservoir and a great blue heron landed about 20 feet to my left and just stood there for maybe 10 minutes. I got a good bite, and when I started to reel in the fish, the heron took off. I got the fish in the net, and he was a pretty small rainbow, so I released him - and when the fish had moved off about ten feet, the heron swooped down and scooped him on the fly, about 10 feet from where I was standing. Really made my day! What a sight.

no size requirements for the heron …. no game warden to hide from

God, they're beautiful. We have a lot of lakes around here, and the Ministry of Wildlife has built many nest boxes on poles.

I was in Florida recently for Sebring. Saw what appeared to be a golden eagle, sitting on the ground, surrounded by crows. Looked like a pow wow.

damned crows are mean and very territorial … I've watch them many times gang up on a hawk and drive it off

I love crows. They're incredibly intelligent.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows