Jane Westervelt mentioned an Osprey floating on the water, not swimming,
keeping this up for over twenty minutes.

Some years ago I watched an Osprey at Green Lake (where else), dive into the
water from high-up, sit on the water, wings spread, attempt to take off,
fail, float around some more, then take off, circle, dive in approximately
the same spot and repeat this four times before giving up.

I took a series of slides and two slides clearly show the mouth of a large
(and I mean LARGE) carp, wide open, sticking out of the water besides the
Osprey.

My interpretation for what I observed was something like:

Osprey: holy moly! big fish; breakfast! Geronimoooooo...
Splash
Gotcha!
Umph....heavy sucker, can't get up....
Try again.....umph....darn!
I want this fish, I'll just float her and tenderize it with my talons until
it stops struggling, maybe then....
Dang! Cant' get up.

Okay, I'll let go, fly up, hit it a bit harder this time, maybe then....

Well, you get the picture. Meantime the carp is yelling not to pinch so
hard...

Some of the carp in Green Lake are 15" plus and, I'm sure, too heavy for an
Osprey to lift.

After four attempts the Osprey gave up. Luckily it caught a nice rainbow
trout (the lake's stocked with those every spring) within minutes, which it
managed to carry to a tree on the island and devour.

Of course there's no reason Jane's Osprey wasn't doing something else...

Respectfully submitted for your consideration,

Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com