©2016 Lydia Hinshaw
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| Osprey keeps watch while holding onto breakfast
TITUSVILLE, FL -- I never get tired of watching ospreys. Living in Florida, I get plenty of opportunities, since they live here year-round.
I've also had the chance to observe them in several locations, such as Montana and Utah, where they are summer visitors just like me.
Prince Charming and I spent Saturday morning wandering around on narrow shell roads east of here in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. This osprey, with the brown chest-feather "necklace" that identifies her as female, was posed on a not-too-high dead limb as we drove up.
But before we could get into position to take a picture, a hawk swooped in out of nowhere and spooked the osprey off her perch. When they're eating, ospreys always scan the sky between bites. You never know when some other predator is going to try to steal your lunch, which you worked quite hard to acquire.
The osprey held onto her fish, evaded the hawk and returned to the same spot, in spite of the fact that there was a car sitting close by. Maybe she thought we provided some protection from thieves.
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