Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - If you see a big, hawk-like bird, look again; it just might be an osprey

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Tuesday, November 14, 2000

If you see a big, hawk-like bird, look again; it just might be an osprey

Mary Bowers noticed a large, hawk-like bird perched high on a communications tower close to the intersection of Rodd Field Road and Saratoga Boulevard near where she lives. The bird seemed to have selected this high lookout for keeping watch in many directions and returned to it day after day.
   Bower studied the bird with her binoculars and showed it to her birding friend. Both of them researched, looking for the bird in their field guides.
   Was it a hawk? It had a white head with black markings across its eyes and its back was black. But above all it looked very big, even perched high on the tower.
   Bowers wanted reassurance. She and her friend had decided the bird was an osprey, a "large, long-winged, eagle-like, fish-eating raptor,'' as it is described in Peterson's field guide, Hawks. They had first searched through the hawks, she said, and decided it had to be an osprey. I told her she was almost certainly right in her identification.
   Educational detour
   Ospreys are not unusual here in winter. Individuals appear in the Flour Bluff area every year. Some of them select a telephone pole above a backyard where the family dog resides. The family becomes uneasy and calls a bird person to see what to expect ... should precautions be taken? This bird, I am happy to tell them, lives almost exclusively on fish, although an occasional small bird or rodent is taken.
   In a late afternoon birding look-about we went to check the bird seen by Bowers. At first I overshot and passed the South Fork subdivision. To turn around, I went into a little street on the north side of the road and there, on a pole, was a huge bird. The osprey? No, a handsome, adult red-tailed hawk. After allowing us to examine its belly band, it flew, showing us its auburn tail.
   We then located the tall tower and were shortly treated to good looks at a circling bird with white underparts. When it landed on the side of the tower, we were able to see its black semi-crest, bandit mask and even dark streaks of a necklace on its neck. This latter indicated the bird is a female.
   The osprey soon sailed forth again so that from below we could see her black wrist marks and long, backward swept wings.
   Nesting possibilities
   Ospreys are one of the most widely distributed species in the world. They are in a family by themselves, ranked between hawks and falcons. They differ anatomically from other diurnal birds of prey both in some internal structures and outwardly in long strong claws that are completely round. Their toes are of equal length with lower surface covered with spicules, which help them hold on to slippery fish. They grip fish with both feet, positioning it with head pointed forward to reduce air resistance.
   This week we have seen ospreys in Packery Channel Park, and along the road to Port Aransas. Our Nueces County checklist (about to be updated) shows them present frequently during migration and rarely in winter.
   Osprey populations have declined seriously in the past 40 years because of human encroachment on territory and because of pesticides that caused shell softening and nest failure. Since the pesticides have been banned, the birds are believed to be making a comeback.
   They nest in colonies or singly, in trees or on platforms atop posts near water. Masses of sticks are added year after year until some nests measure 12 feet across.
   Records of nesting in this area are unclear but, if true, date from 1900. Nesting has been recorded in the Houston area since 1998.
   If there, why not here?


Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds of Texas since 1960.

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