The Ospreys, Part 1

During my long afternoon walk on the San Antonio River on Friday, September 30, there were quite a few vultures soaring on the thermals above the greenway. In the distance, I could see a bird that was about the same size as a vulture, but its wing position when it soared and the way it was flying was definitely not like a vulture.

I had a suspicion what it was, but it was too far away to tell for sure. Once it was closer, its color pattern confirmed my suspicion. It was an Osprey. As a matter of fact there are at least three, and probably more, ospreys either migrating through on their way south to Mexico, or preparing to winter over along the river. I'm hoping for the latter. The osprey is a large, majestic raptor in the same order as hawks and eagles. In some places, they are called sea hawks and other places, fish eagles.

There are two ospreys in this post. The first one made a couple of passes circling near where I was standing before flying off out of sight upstream. The second one is carrying a fish in a manner characteristic of the species. It flew straight up the river channel and landed in a tree with dense foliage on the opposite side of the river.

I also encountered the ospreys on my subsequent two walks along the river and will post those photos as part 2 in the series.

And the second osprey carrying the fish. They always carry the fish with the head pointing forward: