224 Birds Every Child Should Know 
This is the hawk that is so glad to find a 
deserted woodpecker’s hole for its nest. How 
many other birds gratefully accept those skil- 
ful carpenters’ vacant tenements! 
AMERICAN OSPREY 
Called also: Fish Hawk 
A pair of these beautiful big hawks, that had 
nested year after year in the top of a tall pine 
tree on the Manasquan River, New Jersey, were 
great pets in that region. An old fisherman 
of Barnegat Bay told me that when he was 
hauling in his seine one day, he saw the male 
osprey strike the water with a splash, struggle 
an instant with a great fish that had been fol- 
lowing his net, and disappear below the waves, 
never to rise again. The bird more than met his 
match that time. The fish was far larger than 
he expected, so powerful that it easily dragged 
him under, once his talons were imbedded in 
the fish’s flesh. For the rest of the summer the 
widowed osprey always stayed about when the 
fisherman hauled his net on the beach, and bore 
away to her nest the worthless fish he left in it 
for her special benefit. But after rearing her 
family — a prolonged process for all the hawks, 
eagles, and owls — she never returned to the 
