Friday, February 29, 2008

Another, or Same, Osprey at Wissahickon


(Another post moved from Birding and Art Notes website.)



On Sunday,10.29.06, my wife and I decided to try our birding luck at the Wissahickon once again. Two weeks previously we'd seen an osprey there, the first she had seen there and only the second I'd ever seen. Though we had heard vague rumors of ospreys being seen there we'd never seen any. My only previous sighting was the day after the 2004 presidential election, when I was out trying to walk the results off. I was at Kitchen's Lane bridge when I heard a commotion to my right and saw an osprey rise up out of the water with a fish in his talons, fly over the bridge and then course up the Wissahickon. I've since read on the Friends of the Wissahickon web page that ospreys are sometimes seen there during fall migration but it sure was a shock at the time.


In any case we hadn't walked far before we found another one. I suppose it's also possible that it was the one from two weeks previous and he'd just been hanging out. The location was more or less the same but I really don't know if it was the same one or not. And he didn't stick around long enough to do much in the way of sketches. The one on this page are from this sighting.


Other than the osprey there were no great surprises. But kinglets were all over once again, mainly Ruby-Crowned but also some Golden-Crowned. Two weeks ago I wished that I'd been able to sketch them and that's true again. They are just such flitty things that they don't sit still for long. But that is part of the challenge. One of these days, hopefully before snow, I'll give it a try............

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