An Osprey, A Fish And A Thieving Magpie
Yesterday Mia and I returned from a three day camping and photo trip to Flaming Gorge. We had great weather for most of our time there and as usual the scenery and ambience were awesome. At an elevation over 6000′ many of the birds that we usually see there apparently haven’t arrived yet but we spent some quality time with a pair of nesting Osprey – a species that I’ve had little luck with in the past. 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc This pole with all the attached ugly hardware was within a few feet of the nesting platform and early one morning this Osprey landed on the pole with a freshly caught fish. At first I figured that this bird would deliver the fish to its mate on the nest (I have a lot to learn about this species) but it didn’t. It’s intention was to eat the fish itself but as you’ll see, those plans were delayed by an interloper. It didn’t take long for this Black-billed Magpie to show up and torment the rightful owner of the fish. This Osprey removed and dropped the intestines in pieces and it seemed obvious to me that the magpie had learned that particular feeding pattern and came looking for tidbits that had landed on the wires below the Osprey. Here you can see one of those bits in the beak of the magpie that it had picked off of the metal above its head. So far the Osprey doesn’t seem too…