Another Osprey Encounter

from Pat Coate –

My sister, Lynda, lives near the Rappahannock River in Virginia and emailed me this recent encounter she had with an osprey (and company). What an interesting encounter with nature to have witnessed!

“The other day the girls and I were walking back home from across the street and we hear a noise and looked up and swooping down over the roofs of the townhouses right next to us comes an osprey with a big fish in his talons, being chased by an eagle, being chased by a crow!! It was so incredible! They were maybe 25 feet over our heads right in front of us!

The osprey gave up just then and dropped the fish with a splat onto the parking lot. It slid under a car. The eagle and osprey both kind of looped up and looked for it but couldn’t see it and flew away. I ran and grabbed the fish out from under the car and put it in the park across the street but they didn’t come back. It would have been cool to just chuck it up there to the eagle! : ) He started to move like he was going to dive for it after the osprey dropped it but he was just too low already to make a dive for it. We were stunned! You probably would have gotten awesome pictures of it! I’ve got an incredible one in my head though!

So there’s lots of fun bird watching around here right now. April is always my favorite month for the eagles around here. They are always chasing each other around in the sky and right now the river literally looks like it’s boiling with the shad running!”