The Osprey 



annual support has greatly preyed upon the minds of certain men who 

 reckon their own catch by the hundred-weight; and a cruel persecution 

 has broken out in some quarters, persecution as senseless as it is selfish. 

 No true sportsman, however, will begrudge to this bird his hard-earned 

 catch, taken by a plunge and strike, which is, if anything, rather more 

 sportsmanlike than the use of line and lure. 



The Osprey preys exclusively upon fish, and covers long stretches of 

 water in its tireless search. It flies along at a height of fifty or a hundred 

 feet above the water, and when its finny prey is sighted, pauses for a 

 moment on hovering wings, then drops with a resounding splash, often 

 quite disappearing beneath the water, but rising again quickly with a fish 

 firmly secured in its talons. The bird upon rising immediately adjusts 

 the catch, placing it head foremost, so that it will offer the least resistance 

 to the air in flight. Not infrequently the hawk secures a fish which it is 

 barely able to handle, and occasionally it strikes one so large that it is 

 drawn under and drowned before it can disengage its claws. 



Clear water is essential to the Osprey's success, for he must needs see 

 and strike from afar. The bird has little use, therefore, for the silt-stained 

 waters of the lowlands, and it avoids the storm-tossed waters of our west- 

 ern coast. The more placid seas which surround our southern islands, 

 San Clemente, Catalina, and the rest, afford a congenial summer home; 

 and a few linger here through the winter. In the interior, the Osprey 

 is likely to show' up almost anywhere during the spring migrations, espe- 

 cially along the north-and-south-trending valleys, such as the Sacra- 

 mento, Owens River, and the Colorado. A few breed in the lower 

 Sierran valleys, and Ospreys have been seen in summer on Goose Lake. 

 Doubtless many of the larger lakes and rivers of California formerly 

 boasted their local Fish Hawks, but the only remaining stronghold of this 

 species in the interior appears to be Eagle Lake, whose comparative inac- 

 cessibility, coupled with an abundance of suitable nesting sites, has held a 

 good population. In 1914 Milton S. Ray, visiting Eagle Lake in company 

 with Mr. Chase Littlejohn, saw five nests, all in the tops of dead pine 

 trees, and surmised the presence of many more. 



A typical Osprey's nest is a huge aggregation of sticks, bark, and 

 trash; and is placed either on the top of a broken pine or fir stub or else 

 lodged on some convenient cliff or isolated spur of rock. If the rock or 

 tree is surrounded by water, so much the better, for it assures immunity 

 from predatory mammals, including, to some degree, their worst enemy, 

 man. Persecution, however, sometimes drives the birds to the deep 

 woods, miles from their fishing grounds. A normal nest is flat on top, 

 three or four feet across, and from three to seven in depth, according 

 to age. Within a little depression in the center of the platform, sur- 



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