Breakfast Time on the Bayou!

Early this morning as Ms. Ez, the mutt, and I were out and about, there seemed to be something creating havoc among the birds. A multitude of smaller birds were raising a ruckus so I knew there had to be a predator on the hill somewhere. I took notice and headed to the marsh edge. It has been a mite cool for this to be a snake so my thoughts turned more toward the raptors...hawks, eagles, owls or ospreys. I wondered which was on the hunt this morning. Once I neared the marsh on the east side of the house, I could hear the clear call of the osprey...as matter of fact..several ospreys. Even these sounded upset. My mind pondered what in the world could have the ospreys alarmed.

Once I neared the marsh, I spied two of the ospreys in the tops of dead trees. They were quite agitated and were being bombarded by the blue jays. Had these birds just all gone nuts? I knew the smaller birds were just sounding the alarm about the ospreys being in the territory even though they rarely prey upon anything but fish. The smaller songbirds do not care..if it is large and flies, it is a threat! The alarm must be sounded! The attack must be mounted! Poor ospreys, they did not have a peaceful morning. Still, the fact that the ospreys were also shrieking brought concern. Something else had to be in the area. I squinted my eyes against the bright morning sun but I could see nothing to be causing the disturbance. Suddenly, one of the ospreys took flight..and aimed directly toward another in a neighboring tree. Ahhh....

The commotion was all due to the nice size fish that the largest osprey had caught. Obviously, the others were hungry and wanted breakfast. I wondered if this had been the parent bird of the others. Perhaps they thought the fish was for them and if they hollered enough, the fish would have been divvied up. Not so..the larger osprey stood its ground and defended its catch. After much screaming and diving, the younger ospreys gave up and decided to hunt for themselves. Given its chance, the older bird ate its breakfast in peace.