Tom C (who runs the hawkartscience site) sent me his picture (snapped yesterday) of an osprey, adding the Latin caption above and these comments:
My Latin is a bit rusty.
So, is this “Seize the carp” or “Carp of the day”?
Click to enlarge (twice; it’s very high-res and you’ll want to see the osprey’s face):
But of course Tom is a stickler for biological accuracy, and worried if this was indeed a carp. He had some intensive email correspondence with fellow birders. As he notes:
One of the very best hawkwatch sites in NA is Cape May NJ; also a big time fishing village. A bunch of the ornithologists who’ve spent time there know their ichthyology too. We joke there about doing a field guide titled, Fish in Flight (the fish out of water guide showing the various fish spp carried by Ospreys and Bald Eagles over the area).The spot behind the eye and the bluefish-like tail make it so. Both carp and shad have that scale pattern. This all spoils my “Carpe diem” joke though.
Here’s a closeup of the fish. I’m sure some pisciphilic readers can identify it:
And, shadly, this is not a carp.
There is only one species of osprey—Pandion haliaetus—but it lives worldwide. Here’s its range, which includes both summering and wintering sites, as well as the areas where it lives year-round (in North America those are Florida and Baja California):
The fish is, if I’m not mistaken, a fine example of Sushi Lunchicus!
Shad aren’t very good for human consumption (too boney), but their roe is delicious, in my opinion. I fry them in bacon grease. If you try it make sure you put a screen over the pan or you’ll end up with an explosive mess.
A strong shad run is credited with saving Washington’s army from starvation at Valley Forge.
Fish roe fried in bacon grease? That sounds either glorious or absolutely disgusting. I hope to find out which some day.
Cool factoid about Valley Forge.
Probably a Hickory Shad.
That’s an coastal species: salt-fresh water species. So not likely on Lake Ontario.
The American gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepedianum)is the best guess, as it is listed by NYS DEC as an all-freshwater species found in Lake Ontario. But still waiting for a local guy to get back to me during the work week.
Pic seems reminiscent, in reverse, of the space shuttle coming back to earth.
Or, it’s the latest in drone technology – the ‘fish’ is really a bomb.
What an amazing picture!
Maybe it just is because I am almost completly ignorant when it comes to the art of photography, but how much is down to equipment, preparation, patience, luck or experience?
All five. Modern digital camera technology makes action shots like these much easier with features like rapid shooting, autofocus, good low-light performance (and high shutter speeds), and that the incremental cost of every digital shot is essentially zero.
This is a very cool shot, but the lighting is a little off.
Many thanks for the answer. I would very much like to learn, but have not felt I have the time to spare yet, alas. But someday 🙂
I can just compare to the (often) endless frustration trying to catch a photo with my simple compact digital camera; the wildlife is often not quite so cooperative one would like, or I and my camera need at the moment 😉
….and experience is really key. When I take a good photo, I want to slap a person who says, “you must have a good camera” as if the settings for exposure, f/stop, speed, ISO, the composition, my choice of lens, my patience, my “finishing” the RAW output — that all had nothing to do with it…the camera just jumped up & took the picture itself. It’s equivalent to saying, “that was a good meal you made, you must have great pans!” 😀
This is a very good shot because in addition to the great subject matter, it is tack sharp!
Learning isn’t all that hard and these days and the learning curve is not as steep as it was in the day of film plus getting into it isn’t as expensive. Many more advanced point and shoots have manual options that let you experiment and what is nice is they show you on the LCD screen what your choices look like wrt exposure.
I hope find time to try it out as I think it’s a lot of fun!
Yeah, but a good camera sure helps!
All the other factors are necessary, but modern equipment explains the high resolution; so that you can zoom in on a prtion of the image and still have it be sharp enough to dientify the fish.
If this is Jerry fishidentifying the shad, then I am crushed. You spent how many years of your life two floors above the world’s leading fish department and we have to deal with THIS? I almost shad myself in disappointment!
No, I don’t know a shad from a carp. The ID came from Tom and his friends.
I nominate “And, shadly, this is not a Carp” for Sentence of the Week!
Puns are going off the scales ….
Are you suggesting that people are going overboard?
This all seems a bit fishy
It’s obviously a flying fish, and the osprey’s just riding along.
What a fantastic shot! Also it’s piscis diei for fish of the day. 🙂
I think it means “carp of the day”. If you eat a carp every morning, nothing worse will happen to you all day.
Esp if you don’t choke on the bones because carp are very boney.
Has anyone ever tried canning carp? Would the bones become a non-issue like bones in canned salmon? If that worked, a new industry could develop in northwest PA where my old dept has an ecological research station. You want carp? Take your pick!,
“Carp” in Romanian is “crap”
Plenty of pressure cooker recipes out there for the canning of carp & a couple of ’em mention that it softens the small bones as you thought.
HERE’S A PDF with photographs of the USA’s first carp cannery [1946] in Mankato, MN. It seems canned carp tastes like chicken & tuna.
Carp were introduced into North America, by German immigrants, I believe. They were prized as food fish, but they got a bad reputation because they can survive in dirty, polluted water. (We had a lot of that back then.) I’m told that carp caught in clean water are good eating. I like them the way I’ve had them in Chinese resaurants — baked with crispy skin and a certain spice. They aren’t boney. Carp have become a sought-after flyfishing gamefish recently, known as the freshwater bonefish, because you sight-fish for them in shallow water, and they’re very spooky.
Carp – at least Asian Carp which were introduced in the 60s & 70s – are a problem in the Great Lakes because they eat the vegetation, which destroys the habitat for native fish & they reproduce like crazy. Here I know they put discarded Xmas trees in ponds to corral the carp which has allowed the native vegetation to recover in some areas.
Asian silver carp in the Mississippi river system are a problem because they are outcompeting native species, and also because they tend to jump out of the water, creating a danger to boaters and water skiers.
Flying Silver Carp on Wabash River in Indiana
If this isn’t wild enough for you, search for “Peoria Carp Hunters.”
I’ve observed ospreys all over the world on fishing trips. I’m surprised that there’s only one species. The ones I’ve seen in the tropics are considerably larger than the northern ones.
Yes, osprey take a lot of fishing trips, so it’s no surprise that you’ve seen many.
I love osprey. I’m a Floridian and enjoy seeing and hearing them all year round and still take great pride in my high school volunteer project of conducting a count of osprey in a breeding colony in Blue Cypress Lake.
But, my love of osprey aside, I did have something pertinent to bring up on the species issue. I’ve seen that some authors have suggested that the subspecies should be raised to species status, and so therefore in Australia a lot of organizations accept the Eastern Osprey of Australasia and New Caledonia as a distinct species (Pandion cristatus). Here is a link to an Australian government site with literature citations. http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=952
As an aside, the range map doesn’t even show osprey in Australia which seems a bit odd.
I do believe that’s Mr. Shi’s youngest daughter, Sue.
b&
I went to Abidjan in Ivory Coast – the ospreys there were like crows in the UK. Loads of them hanging around on buildings, diving into the bay etc.
You all might like this link (sponsored by my old uni) which has a live hd web cam showing an osprey’s nest in the Dyfi estuary in mid-Wales …
http://dyfiospreyproject.com/stream
If I recall my birdology correctly, the UK’s population of ospreys winters in West Africa.
Assuming that this N-S migration is typical, then are the Americas (N+S) and Afr-Eur-Asian populations distinct, or heading that way. I could see some potential for interchange between the populations through Beringia, but that would require quite a lot of E-W drift in their guidance system, which could be very bad news for ones migrating along the Mauritania coast. Or the Manchuria coast for that matter.
Hmmm, evidently I’m not the only person thinking along those lines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osprey says that an Australian-Tasmanian sub-species is considered a separate species by some, and other sub-species (including some non-migratory Caribbean ones – good for speciation) are identified in the Americas.
I think “carpe diem” means “crappy day”, at
least for the fish.
GREAT picture!
You so missed a chance to use crappie…
wonderful post and delightful comments!
Given the eye placement relative to the mouth, I’d vote for silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) – alien invasive that is well known for being super abundant (and very annoying) in some interior rivers.
For some reason, the March Of the Dambusters is going around in my head.
I was fishing in northern Alberta 2 weeks ago. The osprey and pelicans caught more than me, but i didnt have young to feed. I didn’t even get good pictures of the birds catching fish.
The coolest place I’ve see an osprey is in Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, in a nest sitting on top of a stone column a few dozen feet high. There were two adults, one of which stayed in the nest while the other went out to hunt in the Yellowstone River below. I could see the chicks reasonably well with binoculars, but my camera wasn’t up to the task of capturing them.
Here’s the best shot I could manage, at full zoom:
http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/3069/6xf7.jpg
Thanks Peter, Hopefully I will see you Tuesday if not Thursday. Best wishes, HH John Hayman Kenmore Murray Greys 16 Boyce St., Avoca, VIC, 3467
mob: 0400 173 408 hayman@johnhayman.net
As a fisherman in the northern most part of Southeast Alaska, I saw bald eagles grab salmon out of the ocean. One time I saw an eagle that was unable to get back in the air. Since the salmon was still in his talons, and was fighting to get away, the eagle had to swim to shore. It was a very long way, at least a quarter mile. He used his wings to swim. When he got to shore he still had the salmon in his talons. He was totally exhausted and drenched of course. Other bald eagles flew in to steal his salmon. He was unable to fight them off, though. His salmon was stolen. He spent several hours on the rock he crawled out on before he was able to fly off.
Awww after all that his salmon was stolen?
That reminds of the eagle catching a nutria posted last year.
“Carpe diem” is usually translated as “seize the day”. “Carpere” means to pluck or gather (e.g. fruit). It is from Horace, Odes 1.11. Here is a rather nice translation from the 1630’s. . Seek not,Leuconoe,to learn what end The gods above to thee or me may send. Nor with Astrologers consult at all, That thou may’st better know what can befall. Whether thou liv’st more winters or this be thy last- Which waves ‘gainst Tyrrhen rocks do cast- Be wise,drink free,and in so short a space Do not protracted hopes of life embrace. Whilst we are talking,envious Time doth slide; This day’s thine own-the next may be denied.
My guess would be a really large golden shiner, a minnow. The mouth doesn’t look right to me for any of the shad. It is not one of the Asiatic carps. Generally speaking there are several stages of fish identificatio, each stage haveing a higher probability of accuracy. (1)Fish in the water, (2) fish in collecting jar, (3) fish in lab tray with key at hand. So my identification is around a stage 1.