My Osprey Obsession
About a decade ago I fell hard for ospreys. I’m not sure exactly
why these birds so captured my imagination, but they did. Since then
they have consistently taken me to places I never expected to go,
not just following their migration to Cuba and Venezuela, but to
unexpected places in myself. Oddly, I have come to see the world
in osprey terms.
Why ospreys, a friend asked not long ago, why not macramé,
say, or computer games?
I thought about it for a second and said:
Because ospreys are big—eagle big—and athletic—but
not professionally athletic—and wild. Because they are beautiful
with their six foot wingspans and their badass black masks and their
punk rock pompadours and the dark-light patterns of their wings that
flash like semaphores as they fly overhead and because of the way
their wings tilt at the carpus—the osprey wrists—as they
pull into tucks to dive for fish. And of course because of the dives
themselves: the way they start these downward plunges from heights
of up to one hundred feet, hurtling downward like cartoon carnival
high divers, headfirst, too, until, at the last second, they pop
a wheelie and enter the water talons-first, snaring fish live. Because
they eat fish—live fish unlike the supposedly noble national
symbol that steals and scavenges from them--and only fish, making
them healthy monomaniacs, like sane Ahabs, obsessed with one thing--though
sometimes maybe not so healthy when like Ahab they cling to fish
that’s too large for them and are then dragged under to their
deaths, drowned by what they sought, (and so make a fine model for
the rest of us obsessives). Oh, and because of their huge shaggy
nests that are always near the water, and crammed with whatever packrat
items they can find including belts and checkbooks and fish line
and in one nest I watched, a naked Barbie doll. And because they defend
these nests and commit to them and come back to them year after year--
Okay, okay, the friend said.
* * *
I, then, am an osprey freak. You may be an osprey freak, too—that
may be how you came across this  website. Or you may become one, who
knows? You might start by looking up in the sky once in a while to
see if you have ospreys for neighbors. But watch them too closely and you could get hooked. You may findyourselfpreferring ospreys topeople, and may find that you like the feeling of all your usual
worries, everyday anxieties, and quotidian burdens being subsumed
by the world of the ospreys. There is an undeniable pleasure in a
certain amount of monomania, if there can be such a thing. Like the
ospreys pulled under by too-large fish, you may turn into a healthy
monomaniac, a sane Ahab.
Spending time with the birds may sound limiting at first, but often
enough the effect is just the opposite. Out on the marshes watching
these birds, I’ve felt it a privilege to intertwine my life
with the lives of ospreys. “When we try to pick up any one
thing, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” wrote
John Muir. Pick up ospreys and you may be hitching yourself to the
rest of the world.
* * *
In simpler terms, I’d like this website to be a place of dialogue
for others who are drawn to the birds. Not just scientists, but beginners,
and anyone else who is curious or who has had their lives intertwined
with these great birds. It would be wonderful if the “forum” section
became a place for debate, for observation, but also for simple questions
and answers. A scientist friend of mine has said that the single
greatest attribute of the budding naturalist is the willingness to
make an idiot of oneself. I have taken this to heart and have stumbled
and bumbled my way into osprey knowledge. My hope is that you will
consider bumbling along with me.
David Gessner
January 2007
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