The Children's Book of Birds

by Olive Thorne Miller

The one of this family I shall tell you about is the Fish Hawk, or American Osprey, because he is found all over the United States. He is one of those which you will be most likely to see, and want to know about.

The osprey is a large bird, about two feet long. He is dressed in chocolate brown, with white breast and white tips to many of his feathers. His head feathers are long, and lie back on his neck, giving a peculiar shape to the head, by which you may know him at once. These feathers too are white, so that as he flies over he looks as if he were bald. He has feet marvelously fitted to hold slippery fish. The talons are sharp, and the toes long, and rough on the under side, so that nothing can get away from them.

The fish hawk is a social bird and fond of his home. Though he migrates, he comes back to the old place, year after year. He likes the top of a stout tree to build in. It needs to be stout, for he makes a very big nest, and adds to it every season. It generally kills the tree, if it is not dead when he begins. If there are no trees to be had, or if there are too many birds for the trees at hand, some of them will nest on the ground, for they like to keep near their friends. The nest is made of sticks and all the rubbish the birds can collect. Such things are found as an old broom, a boy's sail-boat, a rag doll, and others as absurd.

The young fish hawk is a pretty little fellow in white down. He is three or four weeks in the egg, and a long time in the nest, and is helpless a good deal longer. He is fed on fish like his parents. For this bird deserves his name; he is a fisherman, and always takes his food from the water. Fortunately he usually selects the poorer kinds of fish, which men do not care to eat, and so he is not called an enemy by the fishermen.

But the hard-working osprey has an enemy, who makes it his business to rob him. The way the fish hawk gets his food is to dive for it. He hovers over the water till he sees a fish near the surface that suits him. Then he closes his wings and dives like a shot. He plunges in often over his head, and seizes the fish in his claws or talons. Then he rises, and shaking off the water flies toward his family, with their dinner.

AMERICAN OSPREY OR FISH HAWK

But then appears the robber, the bald eagle, I'm sorry to say, who prefers stealing his food to hunting for himself. He rushes furiously at the fish hawk, who is obliged to drop his load to defend himself. Then the eagle seizes it, often before it reaches the ground, and flies off, while the osprey goes back to his fishing.

But the osprey is learning something, like the rest of the birds. On the shore of New Jersey there is a place where men fish with great nets, and bring in hundreds of fish every day. The birds have noted how much better men are at their trade of fishing than they are. So they have thought out an easier way to get food than to dive for it. Perhaps they got the hint from the eagle.

Wherever the fish hawks got the idea, it is now the common custom for them to sit on the poles that hold the net and wait. When it is drawn up filled with flopping fish, each bird dives down and secures one for himself. And he takes time to choose, too. If there is one of a kind he particularly likes, he goes for that one.