During a recent bout of googling in the dark hours of the morning I came across an excerpt from ‘the Emu’ 1912, April addition. Page 261 to be precise. It read…
“Home Life of the Osprey” By Clinton G. Abbott, B. A.
The Osprey makes a fine subject for special study, and the photographs reproduced in this pleasant volume form a pictorial record of the domestic life of the great sea-bird. Some of the illustrations show Ospreys in flight, others depict the female alighting on the nest, the young birds, and nests in different situations, including the top of a telegraph pole…
This immediately brought to mind the pair of Ospreys presently nesting at Thala who are extremely inept, in the domestic sense. We must assume they are novices, and this is their first attempt to renovate the ancestral nest. The structure is thread bare, to say the least. It’s ‘heart in mouth stuff’ to see them picking their way across the bare ribs of the nest as it clings to the rough burr of the telegraph post. One feels almost like setting up a catch net – the sort you see in circus tents, in case of mishaps on the high wire.
But their skills are improving and the middens of fallen debris from misplaced tree limbs are diminishing – in good time we hope to lay and raise a healthy clutch with a few more clues than their parents!
We should find a name for them.
I never got to see the photographs reproduced in this pleasant volume of the Emu but I have a very firm image in my mind of our lumbering pair.
