Thanks all for the responses on the Osprey and the red fish. The prevailing opinion / wisdom is this is either a koi or goldfish that has made its way out into the world at large. From the responses, this is more common than I would have imagined.
Jim Levitt who is a DNR fisheries biologist is one who responded to me, I will paste his response here since it looks like he didn't respond to the whole group and I find it interesting..(he has given me permission to share his response) ----------------------------------------------------------- Brian, I am pretty sure that it is carrying a goldfish or koi. They are present in a lot of our lakes and ponds in the metro. I am a DNR fisheries biologist and get the emails about goldfish and koi frequently and we see them in our netting surveys. Natural selection doesn't favor the brightly colored fish with predators like Osprey around! Jim Levitt On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 10:58 PM Brian Tennessen <brian.tennes...@gmail.com> wrote: > I posted this photo that I took tonight, seen flying over Crosby Farm Park > in Ramsey county ~5 pm, an Osprey with a very red fish, or at least the > back half of the fish. > > https://flic.kr/p/2jDaW2r > > I am curious as to whether anyone has thoughts on what this red fish would > be? We see there is a Minnesota fish called a bigmouth buffalo, but that > fish doesn’t seem to be as red as what this Osprey is carrying. > > Maybe it is a koi that ended up in the wild? That’s another possibility > we’ve thought of? > > If anyone has thoughts on this, we’d be interested to hear! > > Thanks, > > Brian T. > St. Paul MN > ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html During the pandemic, the MOU encourages you to stay safe, practice social distancing, and continue to bird responsibly.
