Something Fishy Going On Here

A few years ago, I found some circumstantial evidence that we had a breeding pair of osprey (Pandion haliaetus) living in the vicinity of one of my jobsites... it's not usual to find sizable fish on the lawn fifty feet from the nearest body of water. Sure enough, within a week or two, I was able to spy a rather vocal fishhawk perched high up in a dead tree adjacent to our property. We've had osprey there for about four years now.

Last year, I noticed another osprey in the vicinity of my major workplace- we're not far from the Mighty Hudson, and we have a small tributary running through our grounds. Yesterday, I had the great good fortune to see the local osprey perched on the limb of a tree on our grounds, eating a fish:

It was right around sundown, so the picture, hastily snapped with the camera of the department smartphone, isn't all that great. What is great, is the fact that we have osprey onsite... what's even better is the fact that the osprey have come back from the brink of extinction due to the effects of DDT. Recently, I've had the good fortune to have osprey sightings not only at work but near the waterways closer to home. A decade ago, I'd have to visit the Marshlands Conservancy in Rye, NY, to get my osprey fix (there is a nesting box in a cove there), now I can get it every week just by showing up on the job.