Pandion haliaetus
- Identification Tips:
- Length: 22 inches Wingspan: 54 inches
- Large, narrow-winged hawk
- Flies on flat wings with distinct kink at elbow
- Wings taper to a rounded tip
- Short hooked beak
- White cap
- Dark brown eyeline broadening behind eye
- Dark brown nape, back and upperwings
- Wings from below: flight feathers white barred with black, undersecondary coverts white and underprimary coverts black producing rectangular black mark at wrist
- White chin, throat, breast and belly
- Brown tail has a number of white bands
- Hovers and then plunges into water after fish
- Cool Facts:
- The Osprey readily builds its nest on manmade structures, such as telephone poles, channel markers, duck blinds, and nest platforms designed especially for it.
- Such platforms have become an important tool in reestablishing Ospreys in areas where they had disappeared.
- In some areas nests are placed almost exclusively on artificial structures.
- Osprey eggs do not hatch all at once, but instead the first chick hatches out up to five days before the last one.
- The older chick dominates its younger siblings, and can monopolize the food brought by the parents.
- If food is abundant, little aggression is seen amongst the chicks, but if food is limited, the younger chicks often starve.
- The Osprey is a fish-eating specialist, with live fish accounting for about 99% of its diet.
- Barbed pads on the soles of its feet help it grip slippery fish.
- When an Osprey takes a large fish to its nest, it carries the fish headfirst to make it as aerodynamic as possible.