Yesterday, a fellow Grinnellian and friend of a friend (and now just friend) Dan met us at the Chinese Gardens and generously paid for our admission within. As the ticket taker took our tickets, he said, “If you hurry to the bridge, you can see the osprey.” I was a little startled by this, because the Chinese Gardens are really out of place.” They’re in Downtown Portland, at the edge of Chinatown, and you just don’t expect to see their verdant grounds, let alone a beautiful bird like this.
As promised, the osprey was perched on one of the curved roof pieces on the pagoda overlooking the pond. It was clear that it was looking for a meal, but a nearby scrub jay was not pleased with the predator’s presence. Repeatedly, the jay dive-bombed a bird ten times its size, then flitted back into the heavy brush of a tree. The osprey looked around startled each time, unsure of what was happening. After about five minutes of this, it gave up and flew away. I’m always stunned by the wingspan of these birds. Unfortunately, it didn’t fly in a direction conducive to a good movement shot. But I have this shot to remember it by.
Feh. Swing on by my folks’ house sometime. They live near a bird preserve, but many of the waterbirds prefer the artificial lake within their subdivision — probably because it was at one point stocked with stupid tilapia, and there aren’t nearly as many tourists banging around all the time. As a result, a whole family of osprey have staked out some of the trees around the lake. They are loud, and they are whiny. They are also pretty amazing to watch engaging in all of the assorted weird and complex osprey behavior, from learning to hunt, to the mating-game freefalls, to the screaming cloud of them that will engage and defend their territory from those awful bald eagles.