Bryan,

Permit me to assure you that you have greatly over estimated the weight of
that fish by a factor of at least 5 or 6 unless the law of gravity was
suspended during this observation. Bent in his "Life Histories of North
American Birds of Prey" suggests that 4 lbs. was probably the upper limit of
what an Osprey could lift and carry any distance.

Dennis Rockwell Kennewick, WA denrockwell at surfbest.net

----- Original Message -----
From: J & B Adamowski LaComa
To: tweeters
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005 7:14 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] how strong are they???


On a recent trip to the upper Clearwater drainage I caught a glimpse of
something struggling in the river through the tree's. I stopped the car and
noticed an Osprey looking as though he was drowning. I watched with
amazement as he floated downstream about 200' then lifted from the water and
returned to the head of the run (riffle). Here he plunged in and rode down
200' or so again...what the heck? So, curiosity caught me and I walked over
to the edge of the river to try and see what was going on That's when I saw
the spawning Chinook salmon. This Osprey was literally clamping on and
trying to lift 30-40 pound Chinook (or King)! Obviously this was not going
to happen as the fish were easily 3-4 times the weight of the bird. He/she
thought it was going to happen though and I began to chuckle.....after about
10 minutes of this I had seen enough and began a walk to the car when I
turned back for another glance and saw the Osprey take flight...........with
a Chinook! I let something that I can't repeat come out of my mouth and the
Osprey looked right at me as he flew away with a smaller (still 20+ pound
salmon) and I swear he chirped as if to say "how do you like me now?".
Unbelievable!

Bryan
Shoreline, Wa
jennandbryan at msn.com





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