HAWKS, EAGLES, KITES: OSPREY 
185 
It was seen at Roswell in 1898 as late as October 27 (Barber). It is never common 
in the State owing to the general lack of conditions suitable to its special needs. 
—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —Usually near water, on top of a dead tree or stub, but sometimes on the 
ground, on pinnacles, cliffs, a chimney, a windmill or a rocking buoy. A bulky mass 
of sticks and weeds lined with softer materials as seaweed or cedar bark, increasing 
in size by yearly repairs and additions till 6 to 8 feet in diameter. Eggs: Usually 3, 
varying from white to reddish, generally heavily spotted and blotched with brown. 
Food.—F ish; apparently about half, those of little or no use to man. 
General Habits. —While the Osprey lives largely on menhaden, 
herring, goldfish, sunfish, and other kinds that may well be spared, it 
contributes to the welfare of communities by eating easily caught dis¬ 
eased fish that might otherwise be taken by fishermen. 
Approaching the Bald Eagle in popular interest, and indeed often 
mistaken for it, its great nests attract the attention of bird photog¬ 
raphers. One of the two nests so far recorded from New Mexico for this 
unique bird, all too rare in the State, was found by Mr. Ligon on the top 
of a dead pine snag about forty feet from the ground in the bed of Gila 
Canyon, and the other on the Gila in a tall green pine. On San Cle¬ 
mente Island, California, a colony of twelve or fourteen Ospreys have 
been reported, the majority of their nests—some immense piles of 
sticks and kelp four to six feet high—capping columns of rock pic¬ 
turesquely standing directly in the surf. And in the famous canyon of 
the Yellowstone, large numbers nest, finding safe unapproachable 
nesting sites on the peak of the richly-tinted minarets, near good 
fishing grounds at the foot of the falls, the presence of the big striking 
birds adding a feature of peculiar interest to that remarkable region. 
In Lower California, where a pair of these beautiful hawks fished 
daily along the ocean near Mr. Huey’s camp, “it was not unusual to see 
them devouring their prey while perched on the top of a lone giant 
cactus” (1927, p. 26). 
Additional Literature.—Allen, C. S., Auk, IX, 315, 1892— Bradbury, W. 
C., Condor, XIX, 149-155, 1917.— Brewster, William, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 
Harvard College, LXVI, 364-367, 1925.— Chapman, F. M., Bird-Lore, X, 153-159, 
1908; Camps and Cruises, 46-60, 1908.— Gignoux, Claude, Condor, XXII, 205, 
1920.— Peck, F. C., Bird-Lore, XXVIl, 231-233, 1925 (young).— Ray, M. S., Con¬ 
dor, XVII, 70-74,1915.— Skinner, M. P., Condor, XIX, 117-121, 1917; Amer. Mus. 
Journal, XVII, 130-131, 1917; Roosevelt Wild Life Bull. Ill, 64-66, 1925. 
FALCONS AND CARACARAS: Family Falconidae 
In the Falcons the beak is sharply hooked and toothed, the lower 
mandible truncate, the nostrils circular with a central bony tubercle; 
in the Caracaras the bill is not toothed and the nostril is oblique, though 
it has a central tubercle. Other anatomical characters ally the Falcons 
and Caracaras although in the Falcons only one or two wing quills are 
