Ospreys: A Complete Guide to Their Biology, Behavior, and Conservation

221 Pages·2019·91.567 MB·English

by  Alan Forsyth Poole

OSP R E Y S
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O S P R E Y S
THE REVIVAL OF A GLOBAL RAPTOR
A L A N F. POOL E
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS   BALTIMORE
© 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2019
Printed in China on acid- free paper
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Johns Hopkins University Press
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Baltimore, Mary land 21218 - 4363
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Poole, Alan Forsyth, author.
Title: Ospreys : the revival of a global raptor / Alan F. Poole.
Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018013347 | ISBN 9781421427157 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 142142715X (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781421427164 (electronic) |
ISBN 1421427168 (electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Osprey. | Osprey— Be hav ior. | Osprey— Conservation.
Classification: LCC QL696.F36 P65 2019 | DDC 598.9/3— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018013347
A cata log rec ord for this book is available from the British Library.
Title page art: Stefan Magnusson.
Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information,
please contact Special Sales at 410- 516- 6936 or specialsales@press . jhu . edu.
Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials,
including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30  percent post- consumer
waste, whenever pos si ble.
The last printed page of the book is a continuation of this copyright page.
349-75743_Poole_ch00_4P.indd 4 10/19/18 11:49 AM
www . press . jhu . edu
TO THE OSPREY GARDENERS,
wherever they may be:
those for whom the cultivation
of Ospreys makes the world a better place.
In gratitude for their work
and in the hope that others may carry it on
in the decades ahead.
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Contents
Preface ix
one Introduction: This Famed Bird 1
two A Hawk That Fishes 9
three The Geography of Ospreys 27
four Finding Food 58
five At the Nest 79
six On the Wing: Incredible Journeys 106
seven Threats and Solutions 143
eight Looking Ahead 168
Bibliography 187
Index 195
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Preface
Over the past few years, whenever I told friends and colleagues I was at work on
a book about Ospreys, I would often get a quizzical look. “Wait a minute,” they’d
say, “haven’t you already written one?” Indeed I had, a global look at the species
published in the late 1980s, so the subtext to their question—why bother with
another book?—was a legitimate challenge. Is there really enough new material
on Ospreys to visit them again, almost three decades later? Or, the flip side:
Aren’t you bored with this species and ready for something new?
Yes (double yes!) and no (double no!) are my immediate and respective an-
swers to those two questions. As far as new material goes, the Osprey story has
evolved so quickly over the past three decades that in many ways we are now look-
ing at a bird we hardly knew in 1985. Yes, the broad outlines of its biology were in
place back then, and its behavior fairly well known, at least at the nest. But we
knew almost nothing of its extraordinary migrations or of the wintering ecology
of European and North American migrants, tens of thousands of them, that leave
their nesting grounds each fall for tropical and subtropical habitats. Thanks to
breakthroughs with satellite-tracking technology, starting in the 1990s, we’ve
been able to follow hour-by-hour and even minute-by-minute, the marathon
long-distance flights that Ospreys routinely make to and from their wintering
grounds each year. That story alone is worth a book.
But there is more, much more. Osprey nests are springing up in parts of the
globe where the species has been rare or missing for decades, even centuries. These
new nests are bringing palpable excitement to places like England, France, Italy,
Spain, and Portugal, to say nothing of many US states in the heartland of North
America and portions of the coastline of southeastern Australia—all areas where
nesting Ospreys have been absent for generations. And in regions that held only
a small handful of breeders in the 1970s and 1980s, we now find robust popula-
tions, bursting the seams of their habitat. So a big part of today’s Osprey story
is the pioneering nature of this species and its resiliency—its ability to recover
ix