A Fish Hawk's Visit

London's Tate Modern has its resident peregrine falcons. New York's got red-tailed hawks nesting on 927 Fifth Avenue. Not to be outdone, little Ballard's home to a pair of ospreys that raise their young near an old train trestle close to the Ballard Locks.

(Never mind that Seattle boasts not only red-tails and peregrine falcons but also Cooper's hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and even bald eagles and merlins among its breeding birds. But today I'll stick to Ballard, the city within a city that is still disgruntled about being annexed to Seattle in 1907.)

The Ballard ospreys started nesting on an old telegraph pole belonging to a railway in 2009. In 2011, the pole was removed as a hazard, depriving the birds of a future nesting site--but was replaced early in 2012 by a platform tower built just for them. The ospreys quickly moved in (even birds know that the three most important real-estate considerations are "location, location, location") and raised a new brood.

I had never seen an osprey before moving to Washington State in 1989; the first one I spotted was flying over Lake Easton carrying a massive fish headfirst, osprey-style, in its talons. Since then they've turned up on nearly every trip we've taken: nesting atop a snag on the Oregon coast, plunging into a lake in Yellowstone National Park, tearing apart fish while perched on a pole in an apple orchard near Lake Chelan.

The most recent osprey soared into view as I sat with my mother on a porch swing on Bainbridge Island. There we were, sipping lemonade, winning front-row seats to wildlife drama without exerting a speck of effort.This bird lugged its heavy load to the tipped-over top of a nearby conifer. Its sharp beak ripped into the fish. It tossed fins and scales aside as it fed; they sparkled as they tumbled to the ground. In between bolting fish, the osprey turned to fix us with its golden glare.

After a while, it paused, still clutching the fish's backbone, the head and tail flopped over on either side of the branch. Then the bird most dramatically displayed the behavior beloved of professional bird photographers--namely, a perching bird's tendency to release waste before taking off, thereby giving the photographer a signal to get ready for the beautiful soaring scene.

Well. It's one thing when you're talking about a little wren letting loose before flying. When it's a big, hefty raptor expelling its cargo against a deep-blue sky--to a distance of six or so feet behind the bird--let's just say you would be very glad not to be within striking range.

(A long time ago I heard someone at a reading share a poem that called bird poop "the white apotheosis of the cloaca." We used this term for a very long time, as in "You might want to wash that white apotheosis of the cloaca off the picnic table before we set it" and "Ick, there's white apotheosis of the cloaca on the windshield." I can only think the poet had a defecating osprey in mind when he penned this line.)

Ospreys are found worldwide and always near water--the best place for these fish hawks to catch fish, after all. Their toes, with undersides covered in rough, spiky scales, are adapted for the task of grappling slippery, wiggling fish. They can also move one of the outer toes so that they have either one or two of their four toes pointing backward, which further aids them in gaining a grip on a struggling fish.

It seems remarkable that a bird circling 50 to 100 feet above the water can pinpoint a fish visually, compensate for the way water bends light, then suddenly drop and smack down on the surface to seize its prey. Yet they manage to succeed in this task nine out of ten times when they dive. Then off they flap, usually carrying the fish pointing forward to minimize air resistance.

In his epic work Birds of America, John James Audubon rhapsodizes about the courtship and shared incubation of ospreys in a manner most wonderfully anthropomorphic:

"[During the breeding season]....The males are seen playing through the air amongst themselves, chasing each other in sport, or sailing by the side or after the female which they have selected, uttering cries of joy and exultation, alighting on the branches of the tree on which their last year's nest is yet seen remaining, and doubtless congratulating each other on finding their home again.....The male assists in incubation, during the continuance of which the one bird supplies the other with food, although each in turn goes in quest of some for itself. At such times the male bird is now and then observed rising to an immense height in the air, over the spot where his mate is seated....

When the Fish Hawk has attained its utmost elevation, which is sometimes such that the eye can no longer perceive him, he utters a loud shriek, and dives smoothly on half-extended wings towards his nest. But before he reaches it, he is seen to expand his wings and tail, and in this manner he glides towards his beloved female, in a beautifully curved line. The female partially raises herself from her eggs, emits a low cry, resumes her former posture, and her delighted partner flies off to the sea, to seek a favourite fish for her whom he loves."

I think the Ballard birds are an old married couple by  now; they'd probably just order in fish-and-chips from the local Red Mill if they  had cell phones instead of engaging in volatile public displays of affection. Either way, I'm looking forward to their return in the spring.

Front-row Seats at Cascade Lake Wildlife Dramas

We knew that a week of camping in the South End campground at Moran State Park on Orcas Island, Washington State, promised a plethora of wildlife sightings the minute we drove under the giant horseshoe of a sign that arches over the entryway: our first glimpse was of a Columbian blacktail deer whose standard-issue brown coat was splashed with puddles of white. By the time we'd reached our designated site, we'd already had our fill of deer, having passed three doe-fawn pairs who paused in their browsing only briefly to watch us go by.

Our site nestled on the very edge of Cascade Lake; we pitched our tent a dozen feet from the water. Then we sat on the vast, well-worn log separating land from lake, dangling our feet in the water.

Straight away, one of the many dragonflies skimming over the water swooped by to take a look at the newcomers in his territory. He hovered in front of us; the little probe droid certainly looked as if he were glowering. Then he was off to nab smaller insects and chase away larger intruders. Incredible, the dogfights waged among the dragonflies; I saw one dragonfly nearly drive another underwater.

This is, I think, an eight-spotted skimmer; the whitish tail, per
Audubon, indicates that it has become "gray with age" (one can
relate). These dragonflies' black-and-white wings made them
look like flying checkerboards as they flickered above the lake.

Dragonfly-watching is definitely enhanced by 90-degree weather. Early in the morning, their zipping, zigzagging flight through the mist over the water created an ethereal scene that I think could only be captured in watercolors; the slanting yellow beams of sunlight made jewels of their flickering wings.

Smaller damselflies, boldly striped in blue and black, also flitted over the water. When we floated out onto the lake in our ridiculous, polka-dotted, inflatable life preservers, the damselflies would perch on us as if we were nothing more than exotic, oversized lily pads. At one point, at least a dozen had settled on me, including a pair relaxing on my big toe. When a violinist practicing on shore began to play a pastoral piece, the Damselfly Club Med atmosphere was complete.

Temperatures dropped as the week progressed, and the dragons and damsels' activities subsided, but the wildlife show went on. A belted kingfisher rattled noisily from a perch nearby before her fishing expeditions; once she was chased in wide figure-eights around the lake by a pair of angry crows. An osprey hovered overhead one afternoon before folding his wings and diving into the water, then laboring skyward again with a fish clenched in his talons. Douglas's squirrels--red-bellied critters also known as chickarees--chuckled madly in the treetops and left middens of cone scales the length and breadth of the loop trail around the lake.

Some animals, of course, didn't hesitate to stroll right into our campsite, despite the presence of our large yellow Lab, Luna. A pair of cheeky song sparrows nearly perched on our knees to join us for morning oatmeal. A family of juncos, a bit more shy, foraged in an orbit around our table. A yellow warbler glowed briefly on a branch above us. Under cover of night, deer investigated the plastic bins that contained our food, as did raccoons. Fortunately for this timid camper, Orcas lacks bears, so one could get away with being quite careless with food--as long as you plonked a few heavy stones atop the cooler, furry bandits didn't make off with your meals.

This butterfly flew with all the grace of an intoxicated
tissue-paper flower. It stumbled and staggered all
over the place as if fighting a headwind even when
the air was still. Am pretty sure it's a pine white. The
Audubon field guide notes that "this strange white
normally flutters weakly, high among conifers" but flits
lower to sip nectar from flowers, as this one's doing.

Some birds were only heard, not seen; the yank-yank calls of red-breasted nuthatches tugged at the forest at dawn, and the fluting song of a Swainson's thrush spiraled through the trees at dusk. I also heard my first owl in the tomblike silence of 2 a.m.--the throbbing hoots of a great horned owl.

Best new-bird-for-the-list sighting: a merlin streaking after smaller birds by the water in the small town of Eastsound.

Didn't get to see the strange animal spied by my daughter while she was out on the trail one morning, though. Swept away by the beauty of the woods and the lake, she told us about all the wonderful things she'd seen, including "a mouse! The cutest little mouse! It had soft brown fur, and a long pink tail, and black eyes, and six cute little pink feet..."

"Six?" we asked, eyebrows raised.

She folded up with laughter as she realized what she'd said, knowing she was doomed; the "six-footed mouse" would now haunt her on all future camping trips. "How many feet did it have?" became the standard question to ask her after she spotted any animal after that.