A Change In Diet!

  Well, now.  This was something that I did not expect!  This afternoon, I watched as an osprey was hovering over the Bayou in search of a mullet to have for supper.  There were plenty of tiny mullet but, obviously, none suited the osprey's taste.  After a while, the bird tired and flew to the top of the dead pine tree to rest.  From its vantage point, it could still watch the water for a school of mullet to enter the Bayou but it could do so from its place of comfort.  I watched the bird while it watched the fish.  Then....the unexpected.  Both for the bird and for me!

  A few limbs down from the bird was an abandoned woodpecker hole.  All birds seem to love the dead pine trees!  While the holes have not been used recently by the woodpeckers, flying squirrels made their nests in the holes.  They have free run of the network of holes in the old tree.  Few predators bother the flying squirrels this far from the ground.  No, the osprey did not decide to change its diet to include flying squirrels but, much to my surprise, it did indeed stray from its regular diet of fish.  

  I noticed the osprey watching something on the tree but could not, for the life of me, see what had caught its attention.  Then, in an instant, the osprey had its dinner...a strange dinner...but dinner all the same.  And, the bird did the flying squirrels a favor!  One predator had made its way up the tall pine to dine upon squirrel.  The osprey had caught a rat snake! 

  It is not unheard of but rather strange for an osprey to catch a snake.  Niney-nine percent of the bird's diet is fish.  I just happened to be at the right place, at the right time, to see it decide snake was easier to catch than fish!  I never expected that to happen!  The bird flew back to the top of the tree and clutched the snake for some time.  The snake tried to escape the talons but the bird held tight and kept ripping at the head.  After a bit, the osprey took off with its prize.  It flew home to its nest deep in the back of the Bayou.  Happy hunting, Osprey!  You just gave me a thrill!