Toward the close of March, or in the beginning of April, the hens separate from the males, and seek for themselves nesting-places in secluded localities. The nest is anything but an elaborate affair, consisting of a few dry leaves or grasses scratched into a depression by the side of a prostrate log. Here the eggs—twelve beautiful, oval, speckled treasures—are laid, and for thirty long, weary days and nights they are sat upon by their author in her efforts to warm them into life. When she leaves them, which she does a short time each day for food, she always takes the necessary precaution to cover them with leaves, as a protection against cold and intrusion. Nothing will tempt her to quit the nest when the young are about to be hatched. So absorbed does she then become that she has been known to submit to capture rather than endanger the lives of her offspring.
No human mother manifests deeper affection for her children than does this bird of the prairie for hers. She fondles and dries them after they have escaped from their prison-houses, and tenderly helps them out of the nest. It is now that her cares may be said to commence. Where their interest and well-being are concerned, hardly any responsibility is too great for her to assume. She leads them into pleasant pastures, teaches them to know good from bad foods, and acquaints them with all the devices and subterfuges practised for eluding man and other enemies. But it is not long that they are thus subservient to maternal wisdom and forethought, for in fourteen days they are old enough to scratch for a living, and to seek shelter and security from lawlessness and cruelty. Their menu consists of wheat, berries, grasses, earth-worms, and all kinds of terrestrial insects.
When summer is over, the different families of the same neighborhood come together, unite in one large flock, and travel over the country for food. The males emerge from their meeting-places and join the moving army, and parents and young have nothing to do but to feed vigorously and grow fat. Late in October, or early in November, they begin to attract the attention of gunners, and thousands are killed for the market, where they are in eager demand by all lovers of good living.
AMERICAN OSPREY.
Pandion haliætus, as the Fish Hawk or Osprey is called in ornithological language, is found from the fur region surrounding Hudson’s Bay to Central America, and from Labrador to Florida, excepting Boston Harbor, on the Atlantic Coast, and almost from Alaska to the southern extremity of the peninsula of Lower California on the Pacific seaboard. Birds have been known to nest on the rocky islands of California, and about Sitka, according to Bischoff, as well as along the small streams in the vicinity of Nulato. From Long Island to Chesapeake they breed in vast communities, which often number several hundred pairs, but away from the sea-coast they are only occasionally met with on the margins of rivers and lakes. Dr. Hayden found several pairs nesting on the summit of high cottonwood trees in the Wind River Mountains, and Mr. Allen observed the birds particularly abundant about the lakes of the Upper St. John’s River in Florida, six nests being noticeable within a single circle of vision. Salvin claims that they nest on both coasts of Central America, but more especially about Balize, although on the islands of Trinidad, St. Croix, Jamaica and Cuba they are seen at all times except during the breeding-season.
Below Philadelphia, and in the south-eastern counties of Pennsylvania bordering on the Delaware, individuals have been occasionally observed. Their arrival is about the beginning of March, often when the streams which they frequent are fettered with icy bonds, and their departure occurs about the twenty-fifth of September, and frequently, especially when the weather is remarkably fine, as late as the fifteenth of October. Well-established communities, numbering more than fifty pairs, have been met within the swamps of Southern New Jersey, among whom the best order and most perfect harmony prevailed. Few species display less shyness and greater confidence, or are more eminently social, as is particularly shown when these birds take up their quarters in close proximity to occupied dwellings, or by the side of frequented by-paths and highways. Where undisturbed, the same localities are visited year after year. Their exclusive piscine habits secure for them free and unlimited sway in their carefully chosen abodes, for the poultry has nothing to fear, and the smaller birds are not intimidated by their presence and sent screaming to their coverts as they do even when pursued by the little sparrow hawk. Wilson cites a case where four nests of the common purple grackle were built within the interstices of an Osprey’s nest, and a fifth on an adjoining branch, and the Osprey was quite tolerant of such intrusion and freedom. The writer has observed a nest of the grackle built in a similar position, while all around the great Hawk’s home, and scarcely five rods distant, were nests of the robin, wood thrush, red-winged blackbird and others, and no annoyance was known to occur, the Ospreys carefully attending to their own business and scarcely noticing their more humble brethren.
Their bitterest enemy is the white-headed eagle, against whom the united attacks of many of these birds are concentrated when he has the audacity to venture within their hunting-grounds or breeding-quarters, for they are too familiar with his powerful muscularity and courageous disposition to attempt a single attack. When an Osprey is pursued by this king of the forest and hunting-ground, his loud, vociferous cries of distress, resounding far and near, evoke an army of defenders, who come with all possible speed to wreak vengeance upon the great arch-enemy of their pleasures and happiness. These attacks are made for the purpose of compelling the Osprey to drop his prey or disgorge, which the superior bird, if his efforts have been successful, pounces down upon and seizes before it has had time to reach the water or ground.
NEST OF AMERICAN OSPREY.
Manner of Securing Food for Young.
Powerful as the flight of the Fish Hawk is, yet it is never very high, nor much protracted. While skimming over the water’s surface, even at a moderate elevation, his quick eye soon descries his quarry, and, in an instant, he pounces down with tremendous force below the water’s level, often to a great distance, but seldom missing his prey. Arising from his watery bath, he moves off to a suitable perch to digest his meal at leisure. But should the movement attract the keen vision of the bald eagle, who is generally waiting in some secret covert, or sailing so high up in the air as to be almost invisible, the Osprey swallows his victim if small, or seeks to bear it away in his talons to a position of shelter and safety, but, rather than endure the too near approach of his more powerful relative, drops it to the infinite delight and great satisfaction of the latter. Where a suitable tree, or a commanding stump, presents itself by the side of his chosen fishing-grounds, he may be seen perched thereon for hours together, gazing into the liquid depths below for the finny tribes that sport therein, and ever and anon swooping down with amazing velocity and bearing up in his resistless talons the squirming victim. In shallow places his mode of capture is regulated in conformity with their character, gliding over their surface and clutching at his victims as they come within sight.