Image titled: Birds of a Feather. The famous Seaside osprey pair!
Image backstory: Flying above their nesting platform. An eagle came too close and the pair moved in tandem to a safer spot. The female, with a band on her right leg, kept the flounder that her mate had delivered. Wildlife action within steps of downtown Seaside! Image from 2016 above Broadway Park on the Neawanna River.
Seaside/ Gearhart nature photographer Neal Maine.
Signed, matted and framed. Proceeds in support of North Coast Land Conservancy/ NCLC.
To view a catalog of Neal Maine’s images, please go to http://www.fairweatherhouseandgallery.com …artists …Neal Maine
Heard from naturalist Neal Maine today.
March 31, 2017. Those that do were performing some light housekeeping on the camera today, as the ospreys were expected before “tax day.” The workers left for a parts run and when they returned the male osprey was on the platform! The female osprey should be arriving “shortly”.
Take a note!
Naturalist Neal Maine will share his latest habitat stories at 6 p.m. at Fairweather’s during the Seaside First Saturday Art Walk on April 1st.
For more info go to https://www.facebook.com/ Seaside First Saturday Art Walk
LIVE camera courtesy of Necanicum Watershed Council and City of Seaside.
https://livestream.com/necanicum/seasideosprey
For more info go to: http://www.necanicumwatershed.org
“Like” https://www.facebook.com/ City of Seaside
Fun Facts:
Unique among North American raptors for its diet of live fish and ability to dive into water to catch them, Ospreys are common sights soaring over shorelines, patrolling waterways, and standing on their huge stick nests, white heads gleaming.
These large, rangy hawks do well around humans and have rebounded in numbers following the ban on the pesticide DDT.
Hunting Ospreys are a picture of concentration, diving with feet outstretched and yellow eyes sighting straight along their talons.
Ospreys are unusual among hawks in possessing a reversible outer toe that allows them to grasp with two toes in front and two behind. Barbed pads on the soles of the birds’ feet help them grip slippery fish. When flying with prey, an Osprey lines up its catch head first for less wind resistance.
Most Ospreys that breed in North America migrate to Central and South America for the winter.
Males and females follow a different migration route. Males overwinter inland and females overwinter along the coast.
Ospreys mate for life.
An Osprey may log more than 160,000 migration miles during its 15-to-20-year lifetime.
For more info go to https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Osprey/lifehistory