It Still Happens!

I have had my really cool job for 7 years now and I still get to see things I have never seen. The other night on our sunset cruise we had run over to the rookery at Dead Man Island to check on the baby Brown Pelicans. We then headed over to San Jose Island along Long Reef and I spotted what I thought was a Magnificent Frigate Bird on the Long Reef marker. When we got closer I realized it was an Osprey! We don’t get many Ospreys that stay here for the summer so that was pretty cool in itself but just then a Frigate Bird came barreling in.

When the Osprey took off the Frigate Bird stayed on him as if the Osprey had a fish. Now the Frigate has a 7 ft wingspan and when they pursue another bird to steal their catch it is pretty impressive. I looks like their wings are in two sections. When a smaller more maneuverable bird makes evasive moves the Frigate Bird will bring the inside section of his wings in close to his body leaving the very thin outside section out giving him the advantage.

The Frigate stayed on the Osprey for about 100 yards and then two more Frigates came in and helped the first one chase off the Osprey. Just another day on Aransas Bay. . .

Come see us!

This entry was posted on 14. July 2010 at 13:30 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.