Spent a couple of days at Upper Snow Lake out of Leavenworth. As the
shadows covered the lake in the early evening I watched two Osprey that flew
out over the lake. The first one, the adult, gracefully swooped down and
plucked a fish from the water. The following bird was a youngster who
immediately began crying for food. The adult beat wings to the other side
of the lake and after a following a short distance, Jr. swerved off and
starting swooping around. Finally it dove into the lake with a huge
Kersplash that could be heard all around the lake. It shook itself off and
short of wobbled a bit to get airborne and then, Kersplash into the water
again. It reminded me of a water skier crashing. Again no fish. This time
Jr. did a series of hops and splashes, and after the third one, it came up
with a fish. (I think by that point the trout were wondering what was going
on and all came up to see) anyway, the bird flew over to a lakeside cliff,
and this time it had a different call, which I interpreted as....I got one!
I got one! Finally the mosquitoes drove me into my tent but the
Kersplashing continued off and on and from my tent I could tell when the
bird got its fish.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher