As the
intruder climbs near, the baby birds put their heads over the sides of
the nest and empty their stomachs upon him. This is vouched for by a
well-known writer who claims to have gone through the experience.
The female osprey is larger and stronger than the male. On slowly moving
wings she sails over the water, dropping suddenly to clutch in her
strong talons the fish her keen eyes have detected near the surface of
the water. Fish are fish to the osprey and salt waters or fresh are the
same to her. I have watched the bird plunge into the waves of the ocean,
on the coast of Maine, to bring out a cunner almost too large for her to
carry, and I have seen her drop into the placid waters of an Adirondack
lake for lake-trout in the same manner.
=Blue Heron=
The great blue heron is one of the shore folk and his metallic blue-gray
body gleams in the sunlight, as you sight him from your canoe, standing
tall and slim, a lonely figure on the bank. He flies slowly and
majestically, with his long legs streaming out behind. When out in a
small boat on Puget Sound a large heron escorted us some distance.
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