Kaya Mawa Sailor: Water Birds of California

Refuses to look at camera

Yellow tail

After starting my bird watching adventure I went to my local library (LAPL) and got several bird books. Then I explored the pages of E-Bay and bought two books, Water Birds of California and to my surprise Osprey's were not included which I thought was quite strange.

Sharp beak

The Osprey is a large fish-eating hawk. It is the only hawk that dives into the water.

I have never seen once fishing by my sailboat but the Pelicans and Terns dive into the water bill first and the Herons that I see fish from the boat docks stabbing their prey but the Osprey have evolved extraordinary adaptations helping them become expert fish eaters. Starting with the feet, osprey talons are extremely long and sharp and combined with specialized scales on the toes, the osprey can easily grab and hold on to prey. One of these talon-clad toes is also reversible, this means that instead of having three forward pointing toes and one back, ospreys can point two forward and two back, this creates a powerful grip helping to prevent prey getting away.

Night photos

My first encounter with an Osprey was when one decided to roost on my Mast Head causing serious damage to the wind vane. At that time across the water from my boat there was a six pack fishing boat named Osprey.

I had to go up the mast several times to try and fix the vane. Finally after several hikes up the mast in my bosun chair I finally left the vane a little crooked. Then a few years later my neighbor on a Catalina 36 decided to fly her spinnaker in the afternoon when the wind roars down the hill from the Fort above and her sheets came lost and the wild sail almost took down my mast. She had it repaired and now my mast head weather vane is sprayed with anti-osprey pepper spray. (lol)

Having watched the Osprey for several weeks lately I know that they can be quite messy. Blue Herons leave a trail of white guano spread out over an area (most likely a Mustang parked in the parking lot) but Ospreys don't swallow their prey whole like other sea birds and tear the flesh from the prey and eat in a very delicate fashion much like in a sushi bar. They also don't eat the entails of their catch and simply leave them on the boat owners boat or dock or maybe an adjacent boat.

The amount of bait in the harbor here varies and so do the sea birds that feed on the prey here.

In the past I had read that Audubon was not a fan of the Bald Eagle because the eagle would steal from the Osprey and should have never been given the status of the national bird.

Ospreys are every where

A unique thing about ospreys is that they are a family of one. That's all, one species worldwide. Evidently ospreys got it right the first time and evolution didn't need to make changes along the way. That's pretty unusual when you think about it. South America alone has over 300 different species of hummingbirds, making up dozens of shapes, colors and sizes, but the entire world has only one osprey. There are no "great ospreys" living in the Alps or "snob-nosed" ospreys living on the beach in Malibu.