We have a small set of photos today taken in Florida by Bill Dickens. And there’s a video (also by Dickens) at the bottom. Bill’s captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
An Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) has taken to dropping by weekly to my backyard on the Banana River in Cocoa Beach Florida.
Here’s some photos and a video of it eating a live Hardheaded Catfish (Ariopsis felis). It’s somewhat gruesome as it starts by eating the gills on one side, so it takes a while for the unfortunate fish to succumb.
The Osprey is still wet from having been in the water.
It takes around 20 minutes to consume most of the fish – they’re around 12-inches long. It messily leaves some of the carcass behind on the lawn. There’s a possum living in a brush pile in my yard that has learned to scout around under the tree at night to clean up the remains.
A video:
I’m searching for a word for this … something in-between “magnificent” and “terrifying”…
Maybe “natural” is in fact the word…?
😬
I’m personally thankfully that our species’ bodymass is significantly greater than all the raptors. Well, there is the Cassowary but chances of running into one of those is low (although not zero in Florida given the love of exotic species.)
I love these dinosaurs. I’m in Florida this month (near Daytona) and I often see large birds of prey circling above. We’re near the sea.
So cool.
D.A.
NYC
Look at the legs of that Osprey. That’s one powerful bird!
The osprey will later regurgitate a casting, bones and other undigestible material.
Thanks for that info. I think I might have found some remains where this makes more sense than it being something discarded or left.
Excellent pictures. Thank you. Poor trout. As Richard Dawkins wrote:
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation.”
Those are amazing shots! Thank you for sharing.