With no leaves on the branches, these good-sized birds are easy to spot in woodlands that are fairly near water. Osprey food Betty Grace Nash, our Florida correspondent, sends along a series of clippings of a newspaper column from the Sunshine State in which a battle was raging for a while over whether Ospreys eat birds. Since Ospreys are found along our rivers, lakes and reservoirs, we thought you might enjoy the reports. Columnist Milton Salamon had quoted a reader as saying Osprey will eat a type of wild parrot that lives along the beaches in Brevard County, which is on the east coast and includes Cape Canaveral. That prompted some readers to respond, insisting that Osprey eat fish, not birds.
Ospreys do eat baby ducks.
I saw it with my own eyes, more than once. Seagulls also snack on the ducklings. Both may prefer fish, but when they're hungry and easy prey comes along, I guess hunger wins out. That sparked someone else to insist that the Merritt Islander was mistaken and had seen a hawk, not an Osprey. There are feathers everywhere in our trees.