November 18, 2010
Bald Eagle Negotiations with Osprey
Bald Eagle Negotiations with Osprey
The sun is a peach disk in a golden sunrise, its bottom edge sitting exactly on the eastern horizon behind me.  At my feet lies the long expanse of Tempe Town Lake, the tops of the Tempe Buttes changing from taupe to mauve before my eyes, the reflective glass in the ASU dorms glaring with burnished copper.  Ten(!) Ospreys have begun their breakfast patrol, some at eye level, some below me at water level.

I have watched this Osprey show off and on for two weeks now.  Despite their high numbers, presumably swollen by passing migrants,  the Ospreys rarely interact except for the occasional uplift or downslip when two find themselves on collision course as they quarter the waters of the lake on deep and languid wingbeats reminiscent of Short-eared Owls.  Twice I have seen Bald Eagles, apparently the adults from the nest farther east along the river on tribal lands, but only as passers by, not active fishermen.  I have seen the local Peregrine pair, one with hapless Mourning Dove in talons, and I have watched a beautiful male kestrel taking Blue-eyed Darners on the wing.

Suddenly, directly below me, two dozen Snowy Egets burst from the base of the second dam in hurried, frantic flight.  Instinctively I look skyward for passing falcon or hawk.  An Osprey materializes out of the gold suffusion over my left shoulder, its wingbeats deep and anything but languid, another large bird on its tail.  This does not seem a typical Osprey on Osprey encounter, but half blinded by the sunrise luminance, I cannot discern colors or size differential of the two combatants.

The chase runs down the length of lake, the birds rising, dipping, flapping, gliding, all in the perfect unison of dancers on the ice.  My eyes still tell me the pursuant is a second Osprey.  My mind says it is not.  Abruptly the pursued tips up and wheels, perpendicular and dorsal now to the plane of the sun, exposing its full size, shape, and colors, all its Ospreyness, to the direct sunlight.  The second bird, with flawless concordance, follows in the dance.

I catch my breath as recognition tingles up my spine.  The second bird, now too in dorsal profile, dwarfs the pursued, its gleaming white tail a perfect match for its head and nape, its huge beak reflecting the sun's radiant gold like some malevolent searchbeam homing in on the harried fish hawk.  Despite the size differential, one-third again as large, and the weight differential, up to three times as great, I catch myself rooting for the eagle.

There are those who dismiss our nation's avian symbol because it primarily eats fish and carrion.  Few ever have the privilege of seeing it in all its raptor glory, in full cry, warpaint complete.  The Osprey summarily dismissed, the eagle breaks off the chase, plummets downward, rends the lake's placid surface, raking talons spraying water everywhere, then helicopters upward, one strike, one fish, a born killer's efficiency.  I see no Ospreys near the water for fifteen minutes.  They know, as I do, who rules this fishing ground.
Bald Eagle with fish
Bald Eagle with fish