Birds on a Wire (cont.) | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Birds on a Wire (cont.)

Today's Question
What should you do if you run into a cougar in the backcountry? answer

What is the number one backcountry skill people should learn? answer

Today's Question
What are the five best environmental movies of all time? answer

What are the greenest colleges? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine February 2004

Page:

Natural Acts
Birds on a Wire (cont.)

Finally, on August 3, it was time to learn how to fly. Duke took up position on his power pole. Doreen flew to a pole of her own down the lane, within sight of the chicks, who'd been showing off their wings for a week. Both parents began calling. It was Sissy, of course, who left the nest first, hopping out to sit on the beam NorthWestern Energy had installed, and then leaping into flight. Soon daughter and parents were turning circles far above the nest while Sonny sat—and stared.

At last he decided to make his big move. I assumed he'd fall flat on his face, but he jumped straight up into the morning breeze. He hung there suspended, his wings flexed to three-quarters of their span, and then fully spread as the wind bore him away. He rose with strong, choppy strokes to join his family, as if this was something he'd been doing for years. While they swooped and called to one another, I did a little Osprey Dance to celebrate Sonny's achievement.

Now that the kids could motor, a new routine began to rule the roost. Everyone headed off in the morning to hang out at the river or in a century-old cottonwood on the banks of our swamp. I saw Sissy take her first fish soon after she'd learned to fly, but for weeks I never spotted Sonny even attempt to fish. I suspected that he'd found the nest of another couple and was pretending to be their son. (In places where lots of ospreys live, it's not uncommon for adults to welcome the neighbors' kids, and to share the family's food.)

At dinnertime the ospreys gathered at the nest for conversation and a nosh. Although Sissy was a big girl now and was feeding herself, she also demanded food from her parents, and became irate when they turned any over to Sonny instead. Sometimes he gave in to her insane appetite and surrendered the fish, and sometimes he flew away with it.

By the third week of August I realized that Duke had abandoned his family and was on his way, I hoped, to his wintering grounds on some steamy estuary in Latin America. Doreen left a week later. The adults winter separately, and with luck they would meet back here at the nest in May and do it all over again. For a while the siblings came together at dinner, in a pale reprise of the dramatic and noisy family debates that had now driven the neighbors crazy.

When Sissy left on Labor Day for Panama or Colombia (she'll be back in two years after spending her freshman year abroad), I became strident about the hard knocks Sonny had endured, a way of excusing his lack of ability. But then I saw it—I saw him catch a fish! Sitting on the ponderosa perch that belonged to his old man, he suddenly dived toward the river, slammed into it with outstretched talons, disappeared below the surface, and emerged in an explosion of spray with ... a fingerling. But, hey, friends, this was a fish! Exultant, Sonny flew all over the neighborhood with it, showing off what he'd caught, before settling back onto the nest for a lonely but triumphant bachelor dinner.

A few days later I saw him heading toward Duke's favorite power pole with an enormous sucker, turning it as he flew to make its big-lipped head face forward so that the fish would be more aerodynamic. But then Sonny somehow got his talon stuck inside the rib cage of the fish. He tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't budge. The rest of the morning he flapped from nest to pole to river and back again, trying to rid himself of what was now a loathsome burden.

"Eat it!" I shouted.

And, of course, that's what Sonny did, spending the entire afternoon at lunch. When he finally shook himself free, the skeleton fell to earth, and a magpie carted it away.

Page:

•	Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

•	Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

•	Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.