Ospreys

 

Around here we see ospreys every day, they are local here in St Andrews, circling high over the Bay and diving for mullet, often flying by right close to 7H porch, with or without a fish. But I've not seen an active local osprey nest in years.

The nest I watch in Colorado, though, via the Boulder County Fairgrounds Osprey Nest Camera in Longmont, is an annual treat starting when the osprey male and female arrive from their separate migrations in South or Central America early spring. Some years there's still snow on the calendar, even heavy snow, maybe endangering the eggs; the pair mating, the mom bird laying her eggs, beginning the countdown to hatching that shows which eggs are viable; the actual hatching, which I've watched some years; the parents catching and feeding live fish to the hatchlings as they grow into recognizable young ospreys, I snapped this picture yesterday:

to when the chicks fledge, are taught to fish in the adjacent waters; then in the autumn of each year as, one by one, they fly away into their own lives and migration patterns, and the nest goes melancholy vacant until the following spring.

They are marvelous birds to watch, the cycle of life. There were four eggs this year, of which apparently eggs number 1, 2, and 4 hatched, and the three chicks are maturing fast. 

That nest is watched, apparently, by thousands of viewers nationwide, one being me over the past dozen years. There's a group that makes regular comments in conversation with each other and with the local park managers. And there are local folks there in Longmont, Colorado who drive down to the fairgrounds and observe the nest first hand. 

Osprey season always raises in my mind a question I used to hear growing up in the Bible Belt, "We're Bible believers, we believe in Creation, You don't believe in (shudder) EVOLUTION do you?" People mature mentally as well as physically, even I've evolved physically and mentally, grown up, in Creation whose very process itself IS EVOLUTION - - in the Ospreys' case, from the male and female arriving, their mating, to the young birds suddenly up and flying away, it's all EVOLUTION up close. Stepping back to watch, each animal species EVOLVES into whatever it needs to best survive. Apparently birds evolved from some species of dinosaurs. An octopus species has evolved to have nine brains that it needed, a central brain and a brain in each of its eight long arms. We humans have evolved with two legs and two arms, hands with opposing thumbs, I don't think all primates evolved to have opposing thumbs; with a little more thought and better planning the Creator might well have let us evolve with two legs and four arms, which would have been real handy. 

Although we might have had to evolve through an insect (six limbed) species though instead of the ape route? Several species of humans or humanoid creatures have existed in Earth's picture over Time, apparently down to one species now, most of us with DNA from other species of humans; and our evolution is ongoing and will continue (mass extinction events holding off) until the sun swells and swallows Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and perhaps Jupiter and beyond. 

Assuming humans are still on Earth in ten million years, what do you suppose they might look like? I'm thinking we'll look like giant potatoes with residual legs like the tyrannosaurus rex's short useless residual arms, giant potatoes being served by robots. I hope the robots are good cooks, namesake?

Rambling again, Bozo. This was meant to be about ospreys, fish-hawks.

I love to think of them at dawn, against the pale pink sky, casting their nets in Galilee, and fish-hawks circling by. 

The same ospreys in Jesus' Time. 

Anyway happy Monday,

RSF&PTL

T90