Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Raptor Wednesday

An Osprey passes overhead, carrying a fish head-forward. Location: Green-Wood, approximately a mile from the bay. (I don’t think that’s a Sylvan Water fresh-water fish.)
Some forty minutes later, I heard the mewling call of one of these fish-hawks.

Going to investigate, I was surprised to find it perched up in a tree with a Cooper’s Hawk keeping it company. The Osprey had a fish up there, so it might well have been the bird I’d seen earlier, and might well have been the circling Osprey I’d seen several times during my in-and-out walk by the same general route. I started to move around so that I’d get the sun behind me for better photos, but before that could happen:
I saw that this very same tuliptree had an American Kestrel at its tippy-top! Three raptors in a tree at the same time is a record for me. The situation didn’t last long. The falcon made a couple passes over the Osprey and flew off. The Cooper’s flew up towards it, stirring the Osprey into flight, fish still firmly in grip. (By now, it was half a fish.)
Then the Osprey returned. Neither the Cooper’s nor the kestrel were seen again.
Note the speckled wings here: this is a first-year bird.
May also have explained the bird’s incessant vocalizations.

FYI: Vote Save America.

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