Osprey vs seahawk

You love wildlife. You have absolutely no interest in football.

Super Bowl Sunday is here. The Seattle Seahawks are great football players and all, but their team name got us wondering: What do we really know about the seahawk? Here are some fun facts—and fictions—about the most famous animal in professional sports. Actually, there is no such thing. No ornithologist would refer to them as such. Ospreys are found on every continent except Antarctica, while skuas are migratory birds found from the North Pole to the South Pole Good luck trying to find one in North America, though. They rarely come ashore.

Osprey vs seahawk

My hometown is Portland, Oregon. We do not have a professional football team. Commonly known as ospreys, these are truly awe-inspiring predators to see in person. I wanted to share their majesty, and have compiled facts, photos and video in a shameless attempt to get more fans before a very popular football competition this Sunday. Some people may say this is biased, and they would be correct. They rely on their impeccable eyesight and timing to win football games. I mean, catch prey. Owls and ospreys are the only raptors with a reversible outer toe , allowing them to grasp a football fish with two toes in front and two behind. Experts believe these birds can log over , miles throughout their year lifetimes. These spines allow ospreys to grasp slippery fish —Another adaptation to help them hunt are the scales on the shank of their legs, instead of feathers. Although eagles and other birds catch fish, ospreys are unique in their ability to dive into the water. They can dive from heights of up to feet, and completely submerge.

Biologists use the name sea hawk to refer to either an osprey or a skua itself a term that covers a group of seven related species of seabirds.

Biologists use the name sea hawk to refer to either an osprey or a skua itself a term that covers a group of seven related species of seabirds. Both groups share a number of characteristics, including a heavy fish-based diet. Before every home game, the team releases a trained raptor to fly out of the tunnel in front of the players, leading them onto the field and getting the crowd excited for the game. The winged mascot is an augur hawk or augur buzzard , and not a seafaring species, so technically, it cannot be called a sea hawk at all. But the U. Fish and Wildlife service prohibited him from using a native American bird for commercial purposes.

The habits of this famed bird differ so materially from those of almost all others of its genus, that an accurate description of them cannot fail to be highly interesting to the student of nature. The Fish Hawk may be looked upon as having more of a social disposition than most other Hawks. Indeed, with the exception of the Swallow-tailed Hawk Falco furcatus , I know none so gregarious in its habits. It migrates in numbers, both during spring, when it shews itself along our Atlantic shores, lakes, and rivers, and during autumn, when it retires to warmer climes. At these seasons, it appears in flocks of eight or ten individuals, following the windings of our shores in loose bodies, advancing in easy sailings or flappings, crossing each other in their gyrations. During the period of their stay in the United States, many pairs are seen nestling, rearing their young, and seeking their food within so short a distance of each other, that while following the margins of our eastern shores, a Fish Hawk, or a nest belonging to the species, may be met with at every short interval. The Fish Hawk may be said to be of a mild disposition. Not only do these birds live in perfect harmony together, but they even allow other birds of very different character to approach so near to them as to build their nests of the very materials of which the outer parts of their own are constructed. I have never observed a Fish Hawk chasing any other bird whatever.

Osprey vs seahawk

Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction! She is a beautiful representative of a species from the aridlands of East Africa, hardly a hawk of the sea. It's hard to find a bird of prey with a blue body and a contrasting dark cap anywhere in the world, let alone one with glowing, green eyes. Only a handful that we know of have ever crossed the Bering Sea to land on Alaskan islands -- and that's still a couple thousand miles away from Seattle. Bald Eagles are fairly common across the country, including in the East, but they're already spoken for -- by Philadelphia! Looks as if we've found our "seahawk!

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Ospreys usually mate for life When the male osprey reaches its third birthday, he returns to his summer breeding ground and claims a nesting spot. Taxon identifiers. It is a large raptor , reaching more than 60 cm 24 in in length and cm 71 in across the wings. You could use the name sea hawk to refer to an osprey pictured above or a skua itself a term that covers a group of seven related species of seabirds. You have absolutely no interest in football. The osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats , nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. The osprey has a large range, covering 9,, km 2 3,, sq mi in just Africa and the Americas, and has a large global population estimated at , individuals. Download this coloring page and fact sheet about ospreys. Symbolic and Mythological Animals. Ospreys are ambush hunters. Sagittariidae secretarybird Pandionidae osprey Accipitridae buzzards, eagles, harriers, hawks, kites, and Old World vultures Cathartidae New World vultures.

It is a large raptor , reaching more than 60 cm 24 in in length and cm 71 in across the wings. It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts.

Chesapeake Bay Program. You have absolutely no interest in football. Bibcode : JApEc These spines allow ospreys to grasp slippery fish —Another adaptation to help them hunt are the scales on the shank of their legs, instead of feathers. A number of claw fossils have been recovered from Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments in Florida and South Carolina. Learn More. South Polar skuas , in particular, are notorious for attacking penguin nesting sites, snapping up penguin chicks and eating them whole:. With the addition of many tall nesting boxes along rivers and beaches, the species gradually returned to their native nesting areas. However, they are not complete enough to assign to a specific genus. This story was covered by Joseph Stromberg in the Smithsonian.