I watched the Salt Point Ospreys for an hour this evening. During heavy rain one landed repeatedly in the lake, apparently combining a shower from above with a bath. The female perched on the box for long periods and the male approached several times, apparently with mating in mind, but the female always took off just as he got to hovering a foot or two above her. For the last half hour the female stayed perched while the male brought sticks to the box. This was rather spectacular: his collection method was to fly past a tree, grab the end of a branch in his talons as he went by, and try to break it off in flight. He succeeded five or six times, and deposited the broken-off pieces, a foot or two long, in the nest. He failed more times than he succeeded, including once when he got flipped upside down and backwards by a hefty branch that didn't break and snapped back before he could let go. Interesting flying, to say the least. The female sat and watched the whole show, not noticeably impressed. I assume this is must be the standard method of getting nice clean fresh sticks, but I didn't know about it and was amazed.
--John Greenly -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
