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.
Backyard and Beyond 
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